Crellum Mare
by Eilidh17
Summary: New allies bring with them a potential find of a lifetime in the guise of a planet made by the Ancients. However, the discovery comes with a hefty price as the shield holding the world together is failing. Faced with a seemingly insurmountable mission, SG-1 is left to try and save the planet before time runs out. Takes place between seasons 8 and 9.
1. Chapter 1

**Story Timeline**: Takes place between seasons 8 and 9, but Jack is on this mission. Allows for some flexibility in the timelines of both SG-1 and SGA, in that SGA's _Letters from Pegasus_ has taken place during this time and the SGC has received at least preliminary reports from the Atlantis expedition.

**Summary**: New allies bring with them a potential find of a lifetime in the guise of a planet made by the Ancients. However, the discovery comes with a hefty price as the shield holding the world together is failing. Faced with a seemingly insurmountable mission, SG-1 is left to try and save the planet before time runs out.

**Story Notes: **I like to believe that Sam has the brilliance to take an invention and refine it over the years, and while the naquadah generator is not strictly something she created, it is likely she continually tried to perfect it. With that in mind, I have taken some liberties with established canon on the functions of the generator and Sam's ability to repair and monitor its function.

**Crellum Mare**

Colonel Reynolds had warned them about the unpredictable power outages that would plunge _Crellum Mare_ into a murky darkness. Had warned them of the sudden wall of silence that followed and was quickly swallowed by cries of confusion and fear, but no matter how often it happened or how ready General Jack O'Neill thought he was, there was just no escaping the brief surge of fear that had him instinctively reaching for his P90 when the lights went out. Irrational, yes, but this was unfamiliar territory and Jack hadn't quite made up his mind just how trustworthy the Yahut people were, regardless of Reynolds' assurance they _appeared_ honorable. Despite the faith Jack had in the men and women under his command, he placed a whole lot more stock in his own gut-instinct over second-hand intelligence.

Around him, cries of fear and surprise punctuated the air as people stumbled around in the dark, falling over each other and anything that was in their path. Somewhere off in the distance, Jack could just make out the high pitched shrill of a child crying and calling for his mother, only to be silenced just as quickly when the lights suddenly snapped back on.

"Are you harmed, General?" Only a few feet away and leaning heavily on a nearby wall, First Leader Zolan of the Yahut looked pale and a little shaken, his breath coming in short, barely audible gasps. When they'd first met, Zolan—a short, dumpy man with an impressive receding hairline and a bottom lip that seemed permanently droopy—he had radiated an air of self-assuredness. It was a false bravado, an act of superiority intended to leave no doubt about his leadership, but Jack didn't have to look too hard to see the man was starting to buckle under the stress of command.

Taking directional cues from the Yahutian First Leader, Jack had deliberately played up his role as interested diplomat in the absence of Daniel, who was off in another part of the city, likely with his nose in some dusty tome and holding an in-depth study of comparative cultures with the local historian. The Yahut weren't exactly living the simple life Jack craved. What technology they did possess took an apparent backseat in their lives— a necessity for survival, but not a crux to dominate their lifestyle... so the first leader had explained with the slightest muscle twitch in one cheek. Only, Jack was fairly sure that shaping clay and weaving baskets was, in this case, a by-product of a life lived easily thanks to the technology of a race the Yahut knew very little about.

"I'm good," Jack replied with a quick nod and a smallish smile that didn't quite make it to his eyes. "You?"

"I am fine, though I must admit our power issues are becoming more and more unsettling."

Jack couldn't tell if the man was naturally nervous, but it seemed to him from the moment they arrived in _Crellum Mare_, Zolan's mood had swung from relaxed to, at times, verging on panic; an emotion Jack could well relate to at this moment.

SG-1 had only been planet-side a short time when what Carter was now calling a power hiccup had occurred, plunging the city into a brief moment of darkness. Zolan's nervous reassurance that they were in no danger was well timed with the lights coming back on, and only just enough to convince Jack he should hold off from having the team retreat back through the 'gate to Earth.

"Your Colonel Reynolds, he explained our situation to you?"

Reynolds had done a fine job in his briefing, putting forward the concerns and needs of the Yahut with as much detail as the short visit to PC4-192 had afforded SG-3. But what the man had failed to convey with any adequateness was the sheer majestic beauty that was the Yahut city.

Now, Jack had seen some amazing things in his life: Architecture that was both bewildering and beautiful and vistas that made the seven wonders of the Earth look like sandcastles on a beach. However, _Crellum Mare_, its buildings interconnected to a central body and floating miles under the ocean, almost made a mockery of such wonderment and left even the most travelled visitor in awe of its beauty.

The ceilings inside the central building were impressive; leaving the best aquariums on Earth in their wake for sheer engineering ability. Curved with an elegance that was the hallmark of Ancient architecture, the roof hung above him like a giant balloon full of aquatic life, almost ready to burst. Colored seaweeds swayed across the surface of whatever the dome was made from, revealing a variety of marine life hiding among its tendrils. Every so often light would shine through the display, hitting the surface and bouncing a myriad of colors onto the floor below. Jack could only guess the light was coming from the distant sun in this system.

According to the report tabled by SG-3, _Minitos_—so named by its current inhabitants—was little more than a ball of water hanging in space, its mass held together by a planetary-wide shield. The look of pure and unabashed excitement on Carter's face had pretty much lit up the briefing room, but quickly paled when Reynolds handed the post mission briefing over to his 2IC, who's shit-eating grin took a backseat to Daniel's when the man brought up the first of a series of digital still on the walls lining the Yahut gateroom. Ancient script almost as far as the camera could record. The walls instantly reminded him of Kheb, the thought of which elicited a headache. No good had ever come from messing with the Ancients.

Hammond's famous words "SG-1, you have a go" popped into Jack's mind at about the same time his brain and mouth decided to betray him, and he ended up inviting himself along for the ride.

SG-1 had predictably fanned out the moment they exited the 'gate and disposed of the welcoming formalities. Zolan, presenting himself with all the dignity of a politician, quickly introduced Daniel and Carter to their Yahut counterparts, leaving Jack and Teal'c to finish off the pleasantries. A quick getting-to-know-you session later and Teal'c had wandered off to explore the city, citing a need to know the layout of the land as a perfect excuse for leaving Jack to play his part as the mundane politician. Sometimes he hated being _the man_.

Jack pulled himself from his musings when he caught Zolan's patient smile, the man's question still hanging in the air. "He mentioned something about your people having problems with the equipment that powers this place." Truth be told, Reynolds' report did a little more than make note of the problem, but Jack only took from the briefing that which concerned him most, leaving the technicalities and cultural aspects to his premier team.

"That would be putting it in simple terms, General." Zolan ushered him forward and more fully into the larger of the city segments and on to what Jack figured was the fifty cent tour, taking in what few compartments were still in working order. There weren't many.

The segments were uniform in construction and each roughly the size of a small warehouse; a few slightly larger than the rest. Brushed metal walls were hidden behind single-tiered living complexes, no more than six or so to a compartment, each sharing a common meeting area where families would mass and children could play under the watchful eye of their parents.

Outwardly, the confines seemed perfectly idyllic, if not a little sterile in places where the population's attempts at creating a more homely environment had fallen a little short—featureless walls breaking through what Jack figured were wall hangings fashioned in the traditional colors of the Yahut. Blue seemingly a constant among offworld nomadic tribes. He smiled to himself at the thought.

"The shield that encompasses our world and holds in our ocean is failing." Zolan paused to acknowledge a group of passing women, arms heavy with baskets of what Jack assumed, from the rich aroma, was freshly baked bread. "Each day," he continued on as they walked, "our situation grows dire, more desperate, and I fear it is only a matter of time before the shield fails completely. As you have already witnessed, the falling power levels are also affecting our city. We have been left with little choice but to close down most of our living quarters, forcing families into more confined areas in the hopes of reducing our power consumption."

Carter, to her credit, had her scanner out from almost the moment they'd dispensed with meet and greet, and was gracious enough not to look overly panicked at the figures whirring past on the machine's tiny monitor. Jack knew, though… the look in her eyes told him well enough that the city was in trouble.

"_See what you can do,"_ he had told her after two more power fluctuations followed the first in alarmingly quick order. A stiff nod and wry smile later, she was being ushered out of the main complex and into the city proper by one of the local engineers. A surge of pride caught Jack in the chest at that exact moment; the realization his team knew each other so well after all this time together, that there was virtually no need to issue orders.

Daniel was next to leave, and the rather animated conversation he had been holding with the Yahut historian almost made Jack laugh. One hand on his hip, the other resting comfortably on the top of his P90, Daniel resembled more of an at-ease soldier than an historian in the field. It had taken the better part of a decade, but somewhere in the history of SG-1, Daniel had finally found an identity that defined him. He now wore the skin of both a soldier and a scientist with equal ease.

Jack broke from his pensiveness and frowned at how easily he'd lost his concentration. "You've got a Stargate. What about moving your people to another world? Might be a safer option for the time being."

Zolan visibly bristled at the suggestion. "This has been our home for many generations. Tell me, General, would you not fight to save your homeworld if there was even the remotest chance you could succeed?"

Giving the question only a fleeting thought, Jack shrugged. "Fight, yeah, but only if I was sure I could win the battle. According to Colonel Reynolds, your people came from somewhere else and settled here when you discovered the city was uninhabited."

"We were once nomadic, yes, but the need to roam ended when we discovered _Crellum Mare_. It has been our home ever since."

Jack cast his gaze around the cavernous room once more and couldn't help but agree with the Yahut's choice to want to stay here. The digital recording Reynolds had played back for them at the briefing left no doubt that at least the central complex was Ancient in design, showing a clear likeness to the city of Atlantis the Pegasus expedition had recently sent back to Earth.

"I assume you do use the Stargate?" he said focusing back on Zolan. "I mean, considering this city is underwater, I'm guessin' farming your own produce is a bit of an issue."

"If you're asking if we trade with other worlds, then yes, General, we do. Moving my people to a new home—and there are plenty who would shelter us—is an option of last resort. We simply do not wish to move."

"Yeah, I kinda figured that," Jack said with more sarcasm than he'd intended; a fact that wasn't lost on Zolan, whose posture turned from mildly relaxed to defensive the instant the words slipped out. Spotting the other man's reaction, Jack waved towards a group of women gathered nearby around a bank of work benches just inside the entrance to the city. "The local knitting club in action?"

"Knitting?"

Jack shrugged off the query. "What are they doing?"

"They are working clay," Zolan answered neutrally. "Many among my people are gifted artists and sculptors, talents that are favored greatly on the countless worlds we trade with. Obtaining food and daily necessities has never been an issue for us in the past. In fact, quite a number of our population have families spread throughout this sector of space, yet another reason why we have never had difficulty establishing trade. We are not without our means."

Jack cringed internally, taking in Zolan's hurt tone as a reaction to his own lax attitude. This was by no means the first time the SGC had established contact with a culture in danger of being wiped out for one reason or another, and if his opinion was worth a damn to these people, he would have had them through the 'gate well before now. Unfortunately, Zolan's stubbornness was a universal trait and probably a side effect of having ruled unchallenged for a long time. He'd seen the same tenacious attitude with Hedrazar and the Enkarans, and wondered at what point these people would push aside their pride in favor of survival.

TBC


	2. Chapter 2

Colonel Samantha Carter frowned at the small screen of her multi-purpose diagnostic tool and made a mental note of the time and frequency of the event she was monitoring. Beside her, one of the Yahut city engineers was making and entry in his maintenance log, looking up at her long enough to squeeze out a nervous smile.

"The same?" he queried, pocketing his pencil and shutting the book. "I need to check the readout in the control room, but the dip in luminosity looked constant to what we have seen over the last few days."

Sam tried on a reassuring smile, but let it fall as she turned the screen towards the man and tapped at a flashing set of numbers. "Down another point three of a percent."

"Point three? Are you sure?"

"I'm sorry, Mikah. Our equipment is very sensitive and tuned to working with Ancient technology. There's no doubt about the readings. I've recorded almost a full percent decrease in the power levels over the last hour alone."

Mikah shoved his logbook in his messenger bag and closed the flap with a slap of irritation. "And there is no way at all you could be wrong?"

Sam desperately wanted to be wrong, but sugar-coating her readings after the worrying string of power incidences they had just experienced wasn't going to be fair to either of them. "Even allowing for an acceptable margin of error, there's no denying a marked drop in the sustainable power levels. And without knowing the exact ratio of power production versus consumption, there is just no fool-proof way to determine exactly how long the city has before it loses power completely."

"That has been our problem all along," Mikah conceded, frustration coloring the tone of his voice. "We have never been able to find the original systems that monitor this complex, and even if we had, there is none among us who is able to read the writing with any great measure of proficiency. When the city modules were added to the original complex, the most we were able to do was to install monitoring equipment to observe and maintain structural integrity and the independent life support systems."

None of which sounded quite right to Sam. "Independent? I thought this city was connected to the 'gate's power utilization system?"

"Of course it is," Mikah stated flatly, as though the answer should have been obvious. "We have no other means with which to generate power. It is not the power systems that are independent, just our ability to continuously monitor those systems for power fluctuations and other maintenance problems."

Sam tried not to look distressed by the corners the Yahut engineers had cut and most definitely the safety issues they'd thrown in the face of their own people for the sake of a few thousand feet of living space. It was clear to her that the original temple complex was never meant to be expanded upon, and whatever purpose the Ancients had designed the planet for, it was never intended to become a home to anyone.

"Well, I don't think there's any point in taking another reading for a while." She pocketed her diagnostic tool and looked towards the giant metal arch that separated the Yahut city from the Stargate, a question forming in her mind. "Mikah, how exactly did you join the city modules to the 'gate power systems? Through the DHD?"

"No," he said, gesturing towards the arch as their next destination. "There is a set of power discharge units directly behind the Stargate. We were able to modify the city's power nodes and interface them with the additional living units. We also discovered several banks of colored crystals in the temple, which we have long-assumed are part of the mechanism that controls the entire complex. I can show you if you would like."

"Absolutely."

~oOo~

Time was a luxury afforded to more fortunate people and not to someone acutely in need of more. In the few hours since Mikah had been called away to tend to a problem in another part of the city, Sam had discovered that with every panel she opened or crystal she removed, she had more questions than answers. She doubted the little engineer's ability to answer her questions, despite his basic understanding of Ancient technology, because the limited time he could afford her was barely enough to glean a working understanding of the functionality between the temple and the outpost.

"What have you got, Carter?"

Sam rocked back on her heels and pressed her hands to her thighs as she rose and shook out her legs. Wiping her brow with the back of the hand holding her diagnostic tool, she gave the open panel in front of her one last, lingering gaze before turning her attention to the general.

"Well, it's definitely Ancient—"

"Which we already knew."

"Yes, sir, but the technology operating this place is older than almost everything Ancient we've encountered in the past."

"Almost?"

"With the exception of Dakara, yes. Some of the crystals in this housing alone have degraded with age, and considering how sturdy Ancient technology is, that's really saying something. It's a miracle this whole entire complex didn't shut down completely centuries ago."

"Yes, well, I've long since ceased associating miracles with the Ancients, so let's call it luck instead."

"Yes, sir."

"So?" He thrust his chin in the direction of the open panel. "You think you can help these people out?"

Sam shrugged and pushed an errant lock of hair behind her left ear. The crystal control panel Mikah had shown her was a complete mess. It had only taken a cursory glance to know that most of the crystals were damaged in one way or another. Hairline fractures covered several of the crystals, their generally smooth surfaces now resembling something akin to granite. In this juncture alone, the primary control crystal had gone from a bright red color to having a somewhat smoky appearance. A fact that bothered Sam greatly.

She reached over and pulled one of the secondary crystals from its housing and held it up in front of her face, the light catching a spider's web of fractures running through it.

"Even if we could find replacement crystals, it's unlikely we'd have enough to get this facility back to its full operating potential, and that's assuming the crystals are the only problem we encounter. There must be about twenty or thirty buildings off this one alone and most of them are either on the verge of failing or already have. I can't do a whole lot without getting an engineering team here from the SGC to properly assess the damage."

Jack smiled tightly and turned away towards the Stargate sitting snugly in the rear wall of the amphitheater. "What about the 'gate?"

This Stargate was an anomaly; a mystery that begged for an answer Sam couldn't supply. SG-3 provided a digital recording of the Yahut 'gate, but seeing it second-hand hadn't adequately prepared her for the real thing.

Nestled inside the inner ring was yet another ring, constantly spinning even when the Stargate wasn't in operation. If that didn't provide her with enough of a curiosity, there was also the fact that this 'gate was part of the actual building itself, set against one wall with just enough defined space behind it to allow for the reverse splash of a forming wormhole. It was as though the amphitheater had been built specifically for the 'gate.

Sam slipped her diagnostic tool into a vest pocket and walked over to the 'gate, stopping just short of its massive dais. Beyond the dais, and sitting at a comfortable distance from the 'gate, was the DHD, which in itself was looking like an enigma. Closer inspection of the floor around the DHD revealed an almost invisible seam, leaving Sam to wonder if the device retracted in some fashion. "From what little the Yahut engineers have been able to tell me, the inner ring works like a generator, a dynamo, converting mechanical power into electrical. A highly technical dynamo compared to what we have on Earth, but that's essentially what it is. It's what powers this complex and, in turn, the rest of the city."

"A little primitive for the Ancients, isn't it, Carter?"

"Yes, sir. Compared to the Ancient technology we've encountered, I'd say it's very primitive. I get the idea this ring generator may have served as a back-up to one or more ZPMs, and possibly took over the city's power generating needs when they were either removed or drained. Only…"

"Only what?"

"I don't know." She shook her head and folded her arms across her chest. "I just don't see how this device can generate enough power." Sam stepped through the semi-dormant 'gate and down the dais on the other side, squatting down beside a large grey box, the top of which was covered in Ancient writing.

"One of the local engineers showed this to me before he got called away. If Daniel hadn't gone off with the Yahut historian I would have asked him to translate it for me. According to Mikah, the engineer who's been working with me, it houses one of two couplings that connect the city to the 'gate's power conduit system. There's another one like this on the other side of the 'gate." She pointed over her shoulder to an identical box sitting several feet away. "The Yahut apparently modified the city's power nodes to interface with these couplings."

"So you're saying this city is dying because it hasn't been properly maintained?"

"That and it's lost its main source of power." Sam paused for a moment, closing her eyes to gather her thoughts before continuing on. "Maintenance would be an ongoing issue in a city of this type, regardless of size, but in this case it's more that the size of the city doesn't quite match the amount of power I've estimated this 'gate generator is capable of producing. It could probably power this complex and several others connected directly to it, but not the whole city. And there's another thing: Mikah told me that when his people first discovered this place the only building powered was this one. It wasn't until they started exploring that the other's lit up."

Jack frowned, pursing his lips. "This place is Ancient, right?"

"Yes, sir."

"Then how come it powered up just from their presence? What about this whole 'gene' thing we have happening?"

"Not in every instance. Sometimes the equipment only needs to be initiated by someone with the gene before it can be used by a non-gene carrier, and in some cases the gene isn't needed at all."

"So it's likely one of the Yahut has the gene?"

"It's not impossible, sir, although I'd say the city was probably responding to the presence of the Yahut in general, rather than someone with the gene."

"How so?"

"Because this city is old, even by Ancient standards. We found nothing at Dakara that required the gene to activate it, and, as you know, that complex housed one of the most powerful devices we've ever seen."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning it's more likely the Ancients added the ATA effect to their technology as a way to prevent its use by the Wraith."

"Okay, that actually makes sense."

"Thank you, sir."

"What now?"

"Well, I'd like to keep looking around here for a while longer, at least until Daniel returns and can tell me what this writing says. There's writing on several other access panels and I'm hoping somewhere in all of this is a clue as to where the equipment that monitors the city is located."

"The answer to all of life's little problems, Carter?"

"I'd be happy if we can just answer this one."

Jack left Sam to the inside of yet another panel that had captured her attention and wandered back out the amphitheater. The space was massive and he let his gaze wander up the subtly curved walls to the vaulted transparent dome high overhead. An array of clashing colors shone down on the polished floor of the temple complex; a swirling mosaic of cerulean blues and greens, peppered occasionally with brightly colored sea creatures and swaying seaweed. As impressive as the view was, it wasn't a trick of the eye but the ocean itself.

TBC


	3. Chapter 3

"The Yahut call this place, _Crellum Mare_, which is the merging of two languages. 'Crellum' meaning city in the language of the Yahut, which, best I can tell is a long lost relative of Gaelic, and 'Mare' the Latin word for ocean. Put them together and you get City in the Ocean."

They were gathered in the ampitheater, against the impressive backdrop of the Stargate and its weird extra spinning ring, and walls of Ancient scrip that Jack occasionally found himself drawn towards, as though there was some magical answer staring them all in the face. He looked up at the ceiling, connecting Daniel's last words to the unavoidable vista above, and mumbled, "Aptly named."

Without missing a beat, Daniel continued reading from his journal. To his left, the Yahut historian—a wiry little man with long, waist length grey hair and steely blue eyes— looked on, nodding in apparent agreement every few minutes.

"Teesan here," he acknowledged the man with a quick nod and flash of a smile, "took me to one of the smaller temple rooms his people have been using as a library of sorts. Sam, I think you're going to want to check this place out—think back to the images the Atlantis expedition sent back, and in particular the ones of the holographic interface room."

"I remember. Doctor Becket found the room and managed to get the interface operational about the same time McKay noticed power levels throughout the city were dropping."

"Exactly, yes! Well, this city has its own holographic interface, very similar to the one on Atlantis!"

Jack looked a little taken back. "Reynolds' boys didn't mention this holo-thing in their report."

"Your men were not shown the device, General," Teesan interrupted with an almost apologetic smile. "They were more focused on our immediate power problems and taking images of the wall writing for your scientists to analyze. It is unlikely our First Leader even considered the device worthy of mentioning, since we have not been able to use it in many years."

"How so?" Jack asked.

"Because we did not understand its function. At least… not at first. Myself and several other younger scholars devoted what time we had to studying the images in an attempt to learn more about the temple builders, but it soon became apparent that operating the device used too much power. In the end, we were forced to restrict its use, until eventually we could no longer risk turning it on."

"The Atlantis expedition faced a similar problem with their holographic interface," Sam interjected with a knowing nod. "It wasn't until they found a ZPM with more balanced power levels that they could use the library more fully."

"Your people were fortunate to find an alternative power source, Colonel. As our population increased, the power issues became more substantial, and eventually some of our families choose to leave _Crellum Mare _and settle on other worlds."

Jack threaded fingers through his short, cropped hair and sighed, "Yeah, Zolan mentioned something like that. So, what? The device is useless without the means to power it?"

"The equipment itself, yes," Daniel confirmed and turned to Sam. "Didn't Rodney's report on the Atlantis pedestal mention some sort of data crystal?"

Sam smiled tightly. "I know what you're thinking, Daniel, and with most other Ancient tech it would be possible—"

"What would be possible, Carter?"

"If we pull the data crystal from this holo device we should be able to interface it with the Atlantis pedestal, thus giving us access to everything stored on it. It's not that simple, though."

"No?"

"No, sir. Although McKay and his team hadn't had conducted a full diagnostic of the Atlantis pedestal at the time we received their report, they were able to determine that the housing containing the data crystal was hardwired directly into the device itself. I think the Ancients designed it that way to prevent tampering. Essentially, the holographic interface has the dual purpose-at least the one on Atlantis does-of being not only some sort of educational tool but also an historical document, like a timeline. I guess they figured if something happened to the rest of the city there would at least be a record of events stored on the crystal."

"With access to the Ancient database, the Wraith would become virtually unstoppable in their single-minded pursuit of acquiring new feeding grounds," said Teal'c in a low voice and stating the very obvious. "Our galaxy would be in grave danger."

"Maybe," Sam conceded, "but I don't believe the Ancients were stupid enough to leave behind any reference to Earth. The timeline probably only covered their time in the Pegasus Galaxy. The data-crystal in the Atlantis holographic interface wouldn't be able to hold even a fraction of one percent of the Ancient database. Besides which, McKay determined that any attempt to manually remove the crystal would result in a nasty surprise."

Jack tipped his head to one side and nodded knowingly. "Nasty surprise. How far?"

"Sir?" Sam said in a tone that suggested the question caught her by surprise.

"How far did it toss him?"

"Doctor Becket reported bruising consistent with an impact at—"

"Carter?"

"About ten feet, sir. The rear wall stopped his flight."

"Ah!" Jack tried not to look too disappointed. "So, yanking the crystal out…"

"Would be a shocking experience," Sam finished with a barely suppressed grin.

"An electrical discharge capable of inflicting minor injuries." Teal'c cocked one brow questioningly. "Hardly an effective deterrent for a determined enemy."

"No," Sam agreed, "but in defense of McKay and his team, they did cut power to the interface pedestal before attempting to remove the crystal. I'm betting the charge that hit Rodney was residual."

"I'm with Teal'c here, Carter. I would have expected something better from the Ancients than a quick zap for touching their stuff."

Frustration building, Daniel pulled off his classes rubbed his eyes. "I don't suppose we could get back to the point?"

"Which was?"

"Oh, I don't know, just that the information on that crystal could be invaluable, Jack."

"I get it, Daniel. However, if Carter is right, which means McKay is right—something I will never publicly admit—then the retrieval of the crystal takes a big back seat to trying to help these good people out. Besides which, if Carter can get this place up and running again then the crystal won't need saving because we will have done what we came here to do."

"Worst case?

Jack held Daniel's hardened stare for a few seconds and then conceded the point with a wave of his hand at Sam. "Then, and only if there's time, Carter can make a try for the crystal. Satisfied?"

Daniel nodded slowly, lips pursed and brow drawn tight.

"Good! Now that's resolved, what else did you find in the library?"

"Oh," Daniel slipped his glasses on and turned his attention back to his notes, "Well, as I'm sure you know, most nomadic tribes pass on their history to each subsequent generation through oral tales, but the first Yahut to settle here saw the importance of what they'd found and started noting down their historical milestones in journal form. There is one problem, though…"

Jack took Daniel's furrowed brow and the slight hesitation in his voice as a sign of worry. "And that would be?" he asked.

Daniel slid two fingers under his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose, eyes tightly closed. "Their written language has evolved over time to incorporate aspects of Gaelic, English, even a word or two of Ancient-."

"Ancient?"

"Not much. Just a few words here and there."

"You don't say."

"Anywoo... providing any meaningful translation is proving to be a bit of a challenge."

"_Is_ proving?" Jack questioned. "Which means you've translated some of it at least. Found anything interesting?"

"Not the reason the Ancients built this city, no. At a glance, I can tell you the Yahut have been noticing a steady decline in basic city-wide functions over the last generations, and gaining momentum over the last year."

Jack turned to Teesan. "You never thought to act sooner on this problem?"

"We learned to adapt as many would in a situation such as this," Teesan quickly added defensively.

"Well, good for you, but there's a huge difference between adapting to circumstances and employing common sense in the face of a real threat." Jack held Teesan's gaze for a moment and then winced when he saw the little historians face fall in reaction to his hastily spoken barb. Clearing his throat, he continued on, "Carter has a theory there, don't you Carter?"

"Yes, sir," Sam smiled a little nervously. "I think this city was once powered by one or more ZPM's that have either been fully depleted or removed, and the extra inner ring on the Stargate is acting as some type of back-up generator. Daniel, I've found some writings on several panels and boxes around the 'gate that I'd like you to translate for me."

"Happy to."

Jack clapped his hands together and rubbed them expectantly. "Great, so we can-"

"Actually, hold that thought…" Daniel lifted a finger to his lips and rolled his eyes skywards. "This city is totally submerged, right?"

Jack looked back up at the ceiling and to the kaleidoscope of colors swirling above his head. "That would be a yes."

"And we have no idea why the Ancient's built it underwater."

"That's where you come in."

"I don't believe the Ancients would deliberately abandon this facility unless they desperately had to, and the only reason I can think of would be the plague that swept through the galaxy. It's possible the ZPM's were taken to supplement the power required to move Atlantis to the Pegasus Galaxy."

"This makes sense, considering both Atlantis and the Ancient outpost in the Antarctic had trays with enough space to house three ZPMs. The power requirements for both facilities would have to have been enormous." Sam scrubbed a hand through her short locks and looked over at the Stargate. "It also goes some way to proving my theory that the inner ring on this 'gate is serving as some sort of back-up generator, its likely purpose to provide enough power to maintain this facility only." Her tight smile showed she wasn't quite convinced. "I'm missing something here."

"Like?" Jack asked. "Makes perfect sense to me and I have no idea what you're talking about."

Sam smiled crookedly and shook her head. "Like why the Ancients built this facility underwater and for what purpose."

"And again, I say that's where Daniel comes in." Jack looked over at Daniel who just shrugged and offered a small, indecisive smile. "What, not even a vague idea?"

"If I may?" Teesan stepped forward, arms spread wide and looking at Jack for permission to speak.

"Have at it." Jack ceded the floor with a theatrical sweep of his hand.

"Thank you. While it is true my forefathers were afforded very little time in the Hall of Knowledge before they were forced to close it down, they did discover that the Ancients, as you call them, expended vast resources growing and harvesting marine and plant life from the ocean." He looked up at the ceiling and waved a hand at the swirling, cerulean ocean beyond the hall's thick, protective dome. "Unfortunately, they were not able to determine how the Ancients achieved this nor what became of the bounty once it was harvested."

"Self sustaining society?" Daniel suggested with an air of uncertainty. "Considering the size of the city, it makes sense that they might use the resources of the ocean to support the population."

Teesan nodded. "This would be a likely scenario had most of the city you see before you existed when my people first arrived. When First Leader Ortan guided our people through the Great Ring to _Crellum Mare_, the city was nothing more than the central cathedral you see before you and several interconnecting buildings."

"Mikah mentioned something like that to me earlier," said Sam. "So this is what… some sort of outpost?"

Teesan suddenly looked confused. "What is an outpost?"

"I guess the best way to describe it would be a facility designed for a specific purpose." She tipped her head from side to side, appearing unsatisfied with her response. "Given that we're standing in a temple, and you said there were only a few buildings to start with; could this have been some sort of religious sanctuary?"

"Hmm, no, I don't think so, Sam," Daniel cut into the conversation. "We're talking about the Ancients here, so I'd be more inclined to think this place was built specifically for research and development. The nearest the Ancients came to having any sort of religious outlet was through meditation to achieve enlightenment on the path to ascension. Building a place of worship was hardly their _thing_."

"Was Oma Desala not responsible for the establishment of Kheb?" Teal'c asked, tearing himself away from the colorful marine display overhead.

"An exception rather than the rule."

Peering back up at the transparent ceiling, Teal'c asked, "Then how would you best describe this facility?"

"Functionality is in the eye of the beholder?" Daniel suggested with a half shrug, clearly not holding much faith in his answer.

Jack frowned. "I thought that was supposed to be 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder'?"

Daniel turned to Teesan. "My point is that your people probably looked at the architecture of the hall when they first arrived and assumed it to be a place of some religious significance. The Ancients were known for their rather grandiose architecture, although not every remnant of their civilization we've found has followed a defined theme."

"Okay." Jack rolled his wrist in the sign to get to the point. "So, we've determined what? That we have no idea what this place was for except to say that the Ancients are predictably overstated in their décor and like to harvest really big seaweed?"

Daniel blinked slowly at Jack's answer, but then said with an concessionary shrug, "Not overly accurate but—"

"_Daniel?_"

"Close enough."

"Thank you."

"Well, I was right about one thing." Sam looked back over her shoulder at the 'gate, its curious secondary inner ring spinning so fast as to be a complete blur.

"What was that, Carter?"

"The power requirement needed to keep a city of this size functioning is far greater than what the ring generator can provide. Somewhere in this complex there has to be a ZPM room or some other type of power source."

Jack turned to Daniel, whose attention was focused on a nearby wall covered from floor to ceiling in Ancient script. "Anything?"

"We could be here a while."

"Yeah, I kinda figured that."

TBC


	4. Chapter 4

"Daniel?"

"You're right, Sam." Daniel ran his hands over the last few words of Ancient script and, satisfied he understood their meaning, rocked back on his haunches and rose to his feet. He looked back down at the box and then up at the 'gate. "It's nothing more complex than the city's original engineers leaving a warning to exercise caution when opening the box."

Sam looked pleased. "So, these are the couplers that connect the 'gate to the power grid?"

"You'd probably have to open the boxes up to be sure, but yeah, that's the way it reads to me. Kinda odd though, don't you think?"

"Odd?" Sam knelt down in front of the first coupling box and pulled her diagnostic tool from one of her vest pockets. "In what way?"

"The Ancients labeling their technology for all to find. Look at the images we've received from the Atlantis expedition. Most of their information has been locked inside functional consoles requiring a gene-bearer to activate."

"Initially, yes. But Doctor Weir's report stated that non-gene carrying personnel were able to use a substantial amount of Atlantis' systems once they'd been initialized."

Daniel pursed his lips in thought and knelt back down beside her. "That's not quite what I meant. This," he gestured to the box, "is virtually in plain sight for all to see. It's almost like an open invitation."

Sam ran her tool around the seams of the box and peered at the stream of numbers scrolling past on the instrument's tiny screen. "I'm afraid you've lost me here, Daniel."

"I don't think these…" he waved a hand at the closest box. "What did you call them?"

"Couplers?"

"Yeah, those. I don't think they were part of the original 'gate system when the Ancients established this outpost. They're a later addition."

"How much later?" Sam asked, her brow knotting questioningly.

"I'm not sure, but if I had to make a guess, I'd almost say they were added to the 'gate just before the city was abandoned. They just don't… I don't know…" He rose to his feet and swept his gaze around the entire room. "They don't fit in with everything else. I think the Ancients knew they had to leave the city and rigged up this ring generator system with the express hope of it keeping the outpost and the shield operational until they could return."

Sam left her tool on top of the box and rose to join him. "Well, given the imposing size of this place, I guess it makes sense that they might have wanted to reclaim it at some point. So you think they abandoned it when the plague broke out?"

"It's the only reason I can think of for them leaving such an impressive set-up." He swept his hand out to encompass the general area. "Somewhere here there has to be a ZPM room or at least some central control area. If we assume this place is at least as old as Dakara, then it's probably been cleverly concealed."

"Then what happened?"

"What do you mean?"

"The Ancients returned to this galaxy at some point in their history. So why didn't they take this place back?"

Daniel shrugged. "No idea. Perhaps knowledge of its existence was lost?"

"This is the Ancients we're talking about here. How likely does that sound to you?"

"Not very," he conceded dryly, "but then they've set a precedence for leaving their stuff abandoned."

"True. So... a cleverly concealed control area? Doesn't it seem strange to you that the Yahut haven't found one?

"Not if we're wrong and it does need the gene to activate the entrance, no."

"But dad and I opened the control room at Dakara by reading the writings on the wall. We had nothing but your notes to guide us. In comparison, the Yahut have been here a long time. Surely they've made some sort of attempt to access other parts of the complex?"

"According to Teesan, no, they haven't. You heard him, Sam. They were barely able to use the holographic interface before they realized how much of a power drain it was on the outpost's supply. They're nomadic, and despite having lived here for several generations, they'd still be more inclined to live the simple life over trying to find out what makes this place tick. A bit like finding a gift horse and not caring where it came from."

"I don't know about that, Daniel. Mikah and several other Yahut engineers seemed to have a fairly good grasp of the city's operating systems. Still… it's taken us several years just to scratch the surface of what we know about Ancient tech, and we've had plenty of help."

Daniel shrugged. "Who knows? They certainly knew enough to shut the holo-room down. Then there's the whole adding of a city to the original complex. That's some mean engineering feat even by our standards." He strode out to a point just in front of the 'gate and stared up at the massive dome overhead. "You know," he said absently, "this kinda reminds me of Vis Uban."

"Really? I don't recall fish on the ceiling."

"Ha ha," he returned. "No, I was thinking more of Shamda. They lived in this impressive city with miles of ruins to explore and writings etched on walls for as far as you could see, and not once did they ever take the time to investigate what they had."

"I'm sure you did, though."

"Not really. The writing interested me, but there was always something holding me back from exploring the ruins. Like a fear I couldn't rationalize."

Sam crossed the short distance and stood next to him, placing her hand on his arm in a gesture of comfort. "Maybe Oma didn't want you finding something that might have triggered memories of your past."

"Oh, that's good, Sam," Daniel laughed lightly. "So she drops me buck-naked right in the middle of an archaeological playground and hopes I'll ignore the honkin' huge ruins?"

"Yeah," Sam smiled wryly. "It seemed a little odd to me, too."

The mood was suddenly getting a little too sombre for his liking. "So! We're looking for some kind of entrance way or writing that might tell us where they housed the ZPM's."

"Any ideas?"

Daniel did a slow 360 degree turn, his gaze tracking up and down the walls and ceiling as he went, taking in as much detail as possible. "Besides the dome above and the Stargate behind us, what do you see?"

Sam followed his line of sight to a wall at the far end of the massive amphitheatre. "I'm not sure, but the room doesn't feel functional to me."

"In what way?"

"Well," she strode away from him in the direction of the far wall. "We've got a transparent dome above which seems to do nothing more than provide us with a spectacular view of the ocean, and then we've got a large semi-circular hallway that leads to a dead end. The rest of the room is vaulted ceilings with smaller passageways that lead to several ante-rooms and the rest of the city. We already know the Ancients don't build out of a need to be purely practical, so if that's the case here, then why is this room so big?"

"Really?" Daniel's eyebrows rose above the upper rim of his glasses, a sense of knowing something Sam didn't reflected in his smile. "Grandiose architecture notwithstanding, I think this room is very functional."

Sam turned and eyed him suspiciously. "Oh, you do, do you?"

Daniel pointed at the far end of the hallway leading from the ampitheater. "In fact, I'd almost hazard a guess and say that this wall probably opens out to the ocean."

"You do? It does?" Sam frowned, seemingly unconvinced with his assessment.

"Come back here," he beckoned, and she walked back towards him. He grabbed her by the shoulders and slowly spun her to face away from him and back in the direction she came from. "Now, in your mind's eye, seal off all the passageways connected to this room and open up the end wall. Let the water in. What do you see?"

Sam closed her eyes and opened them almost instantly, an expression of amazement spread across her face. "It's funnel shaped. The water is actually being channelled to the Stargate!"

"Explains why the 'gate is built into the wall instead of standing free."

"How so?"

"Because I think I've figured out what the Ancients built this planet for."

~oOo~

"Terraforming?" The general's brow rose high on his forehead, the look matching the high, uncertain-sounding pitch of his voice. They were standing down the far end of the amphitheater, away from the Stargate, but still under the shrouded gaze of sea creatures that drifted lazily across the dome high above them. Jack found the whole atmosphere a little unnerving; almost as though he was in a giant fishbowl looking out. "Anyone care to explain?"

"Daniel thinks the Ancients probably used this whole amphitheater like a giant water tunnel that funnelled water straight from the ocean and through the 'gate to a newly terraformed world. If he's right, then this whole chamber is perfectly watertight when sealed."

"Right," he drawled, squinting hard at Sam before turning his gaze to Daniel. "Really? Terraforming?"

"It makes sense, Jack."

First Leader Zolan looked equally as confused. "What is this terraforming you speak of?"

Daniel quickly looked to Sam, who ceded the floor with the flash of a smile. "In simple terms, it's a means by which a race with the technological know-how is able to take an uninhabitable world and make it suitable to support human life. Essentially, they bring life to a lifeless world."

"Daniel?"

"Jack?"

"I thought we already knew that the Ancients used the weapon at Dakara to seed life in the galaxy? Fairly sure you sent me a memo."

"I did," he said, and then quickly added as an afterthought, "Well, we're not sure about the weapon being used to seed the _whole_ galaxy, but as it is widely accepted that human life in this galaxy is said to have originated on Earth…" Daniel caught Jack's hardened stare and smiled nervously, urging himself to get to the point. "Look, the chances of finding as many habitable planets as we have are fairly low, so it's reasonable to assume the Ancients probably gave evolution a nudge along in the form of some type of terraforming effort."

Teal'c turned away from examining one of the amphitheater walls and fixed his gaze on Daniel. "If we assume the Ancients did indeed assist in their own terraforming efforts, would this not mean that all the marine, animal, and plant life we have encountered are not native to many of the worlds we have visited?"

"He's got you there, Daniel," O'Neill chimed laconically.

"That I don't know, Teal'c. Perhaps on the terraformed worlds, yes, but on others it would be a process of natural evolution. Look, what other reason could there be for the Ancients to send such vast quantities of water and marine life through the Stargate?"

"Pool party?" Jack's smiled died under Daniel's withering stare. "Right! So this is a theory?"

"More like a work in progress."

"Carter?"

"I'm with Daniel on this, sir. If he's right, then it sheds light on not only the purpose for the outpost, but why the Ancients were so desperate to keep the facility operational after they left."

"And could you perhaps shed that light on the rest of us?"

"If we take it as a given that they used this facility for terraforming, that would mean the water levels fluctuated between a pre-determined low volume and an extreme high volume. The difference being the point at which they funnelled water through the 'gate to another planet."

"Where does it come from?"

"Sir?"

"The water, Carter. All this chit-chat about pre-determined this and that, you haven't actually said where the stuff comes from."

"I... don't know. Could be a facility at the core, or perhaps even a several facilities spread about the planet. I'd only be guessing."

"Well, whatever it is, it's a lot of water, Carter."

"Yes, sir, but we're also talking about an entire world of water that is produced for this specific purpose, and given that most planets also have land mass and this one doesn't, well… that's a lot of water. The Ancients designed a shield that was capable of contracting and expanding with the volume of water being created and used, and I'm pretty sure the generator system they replaced the ZPMs with was designed to maintain this facility and those systems only. And only with enough power to achieve minimal sustainability."

"In English?"

"The ring generator's primary purpose was to produce only enough power to keep the outpost and the shield operational. Nothing more."

"Oh." Zolan paled visibly. "We have added many living sections to the original complex. Granted we did so over a long period of time, but…"

Sam nodded tightly, her lips curving in a sympathetic smile. "I'm sorry, Zolan, but if I'm right, and I'm reasonably certain I am; then it was those additions that have taken power away from the generator, which in turn has caused the shield to slowly lose integrity."

"So, the shield has been slowly contracting in direct proportion to the amount of power it has at its disposal. And the water has been what? Drifting off into space?" Daniel asked.

"I'm guessing there is some release function to dispel any overflow as the shield contracts, but a total loss of volume would only happen if the shield collapsed completely. The Ancients would have calculated how much volume the shield could hold at its minimum sustainable level and built the ring generator to maintain that volume and support the original complex. One can't function without the other. I don't believe it would have occurred to them that someone might find this planet and try to colonize it. There is something that I'm curious about, though." Sam looked to Zolan. "Ancient technology is very advanced, and Mikah has already shown me how your engineers interfaced the additional city modules to the existing Ancient complex. But I would like to know where you got the technology from."

Zolan slid his gaze between Sam and Jack. "As I told General O'Neill earlier, we are a very resourceful people. The schematics and materials for the modules were procured through one of our trading partners, many generations ago. Once we overcame the issue of internal pressurization, it was quite easy to connect the units to the power grid."

So, a little more tech-savvy than Sam had concluded. "And how many units have you added?"

"The original structure consisted of the temple and five interconnected work and living spheres. We have added another thirty similar buildings, the most recent of which was approximately ten years ago."

"Thirty six altogether," Sam mumbled. "The ring generator wasn't designed to provide that much power."

"We didn't know," interjected Zolan defensively. "Our power issues only began to surface in recent years and it has only been in the last short while that our engineers have been able to calculate _Minitos'_ surface volume."

"And how are you able to do that?"

"We traded—"

"For the technology," she finished for him. "Still, it doesn't explain why you've only been experiencing power problems for the last few decades and not prior to that. Unless…"

"Carter?" Jack quirked an eyebrow at her, questioningly.

"Well, sir, it's possible the Ancients factored a power storage component into their technology and this complex has been tapping into that supply to supplement the loss it was suffering when the Yahut added to the facility. Over time, that back-up supply has been slowly depleted to the point where the equipment that monitors this facility was forced to divert power from one system to support another."

"Would not the integrity of the shield be a higher priority than life support?" Teal'c asked. "Without the shield to maintain the cohesiveness of the ocean, there would be no need for the city."

"That would be my operational priority," Sam agreed. "But, Ancient technology is highly intuitive and I have to wonder if it detected the presence of people and overrode its original programming. Then again, it's also possible the crystal degradation I've seen may have affected the outpost's monitoring equipment, essentially bypassing its self-checking protocols."

"As interesting as all this is, Carter, can you bottom line it for us, please? Preferably _before_ this place loses its shield."

"Bottom line? I'm reasonably sure I can sever the power supply between the ring generator and the Yahut city and connect it to one or more of our naquadah generators. This will free up power to run the planetary shield, but it could also overload the system."

Daniel peered at her over the top of his glasses, lips pursed in thought. "Because the conduits the power flows along have been operating long-term at a diminished rate?"

"Exactly!" Sam confirmed, looking slightly surprised by Daniel's response. "The flow would need to be regulated or we'd risk destroying not only the conduits, but the monitoring equipment and in turn the shield generator."

"Which makes finding the equipment that powers this place a priority," Daniel stated obviously.

"We can't even contemplate diverting the city to back-up naquadah generators until we've done that. And just to make sure we're all clear, we can only sever power to the units the Yahut have added to the complex, not the complex itself. That has to stay connected to the ring generator or we risk severing the monitoring equipment. And there's something else to consider."

"Ah, yes… here comes the 'but' I was waiting for," Jack quipped good-naturedly.

Sam smiled thinly. "Not so much a 'but', sir, just me adding one more thing to a long list of possibilities."

"Go," Jack waved a hand at her, "add away."

"I've been considering the engineering of this facility and, without knowing for certain, it seems this whole structure would have to be anchored to an artificial core to hold it in place. The only other means of holding depth would be through buoyancy tanks or some type of thruster system, neither of which seem likely or particularly efficient to me. If the city is held in place by a tether, then I'm guessing it retracts with the loss of planetary water mass and maintains the complex at a certain depth."

"Or?" the general asked.

"Or, the planet loses enough mass that the city reaches the surface and is destroyed when it comes into contact with the shield."

"No chance of it just bobbing to the surface and floating there?"

"No, sir. Not if you consider the shield to be like a giant water balloon. If the Ancients did manage to create a core that functions in the same way a naturally formed one does, then there might be enough gravity for the city to do just that. Of course, that would mean providing a layer of atmosphere between the surface of the water and the shield. I would only be guessing here, but considering this planet is purpose built, it's not likely the Ancients would choose to have both a shield and a spinning core. The power requirements for both would be, well… enormous."

"The Ancients were known for their many redundancies," Daniel reminded her, not that she hadn't had more than enough hands-on experience with Ancient technology to know what they were capable of. "This wouldn't be a first."

"True, but the Yahut have documented an increased loss of planetary mass over a period of time."

Daniel shrugged. "So, no core?"

"I wouldn't think so, no. At least not in the traditional sense. Think of it as an anchor for the tether. It's more likely the monitoring equipment is regulating water levels in tandem with the power available to maintain the shield."

"Like the dome on P3X-389?" Daniel asked.

Jack looked suitably lost. "389?"

Coming to his rescue, Sam quickly explained. "Nevin's world. The equipment that maintained the dome also strictly controlled the population through its neural link. The dome was powered by energy collected from geothermal vents, and when they started to cool the computer compensated for the lack of available energy by reducing the size of the dome and the population it had to sustain."

"Ah! Right!"

Sam continued on, "Essentially, we're looking at similar circumstances here. Less available power means the computer has to compensate by slowly sacrificing what it sees as non-essential system, whether those sacrifices conform with the computers original programming or not."

TBC


	5. Chapter 5

Letting his eyes rest for a moment, Jack rubbed the back of his neck, frowning from a mixture of frustration and indecision. A large part of him wanted to forcibly haul the Yahut through the 'gate to some safe world and take his team home, despite Zolan's do or die approach to his people's survival. But, like so many times in the past when they'd been presented with the seemingly impossible, there was a niggling sense of wanting to take a further step, see if they could try and save this planet—not just for the Yahut, but for the veritable wealth of technological importance it held. Carter had only scratched the surface here with what she was able to access, and with the full resources of the SGC engineering department, Jack was fairly certain they'd be presenting the naysayers back home with a find beyond anything they'd discovered before.

More worrisome than trying to persuade Zolan to move his people was the risk of failure and the inevitability that they might find themselves stranded without means of rescue.

"Carter." Jack tilted his head up and cocked an eyebrow at her; the look intended to warn her that he was looking for straight-up answers. To hell with diplomatic niceties.

Sam shrugged one shoulder and smiled thinly. "Risk assessment? If there was time to get an engineering team here to do a proper survey of the outpost and its systems, we wouldn't be at the point we are now. Time is the key, and we're running out of options." In what was probably an attempt to lend weight to her words, she turned to Zolan and let her gaze drift between him and the entrance to the city and back again. "Temporarily evacuating your people to another planet would further slow the rate of power consumption, giving us a little more time to work on connecting the city to a naquadah generator."

Zolan tipped his head ever so slightly to one side and regarded her through slighted eyes. "An option General O'Neill has already tried to sway me with."

"In this case it's an option worth considering. I'm sorry, Zolan, but there's no way I could even consider severing this city and switching it to the generator while it's still inhabited. Providing the city with an independent power source benefits everyone, most especially your people, but there's a list of risks inherent with trying anything like this."

"We are not a people used to being totally reliant on the generosity of others."

"Oh, for crying out loud!" Jack stepped into Zolan's personal space and sliced a hand through the air towards the city. "If it makes you feel better then think of this as a trade. We save your city and you let Carter and Daniel take a good, long look at how this place works."

"And if you cannot?"

Jack schooled his features and settled his gaze solidly on the man. Unintentionally or not, the Yahut leader had forced him to play his hand, committing his team to at least attempting to save the outpost and city.

"Cannot what? Save this place? No guarantees, but it won't be for a lack of trying on our part. What about you? Are you really willing to place the lives of your people over all of this? Because if you are then we walk away right now."

"You wouldn't!"

"Try me! You say you have allies and trading partners on other worlds, then pick a damn address and get your people out of harm's way. And if that's too hard for you then we've got better things to be doing back home, 'cause we don't need to be here when shit happens."

"Sir!"

"Carter!" Jack cocked his head and stared stony-faced at her. "So help me, but my well of good intentions has almost run dry."

And in a show of appreciation that was wholly unwelcome, the floor vibrated underfoot as the lights blinked and then went out again.

~oOo~

Jack wove his way through the throng of people milling around the Stargate. Despite the vastness of the hall, the crowd made the place feel small, almost claustrophobic, and he could barely see Carter standing on the dais in front of the 'gate. Yahut families clung to each other in clutches, small children peeking out from behind the legs of their parents, all carrying bundles of personal belongings.

"Carter!" Jack waved a hand in the air to catch her attention. He was being bumped and jostled from side to side as he tried to find a clear path through the throng, hyper-aware of his P90 clipped to his vest and held in as tightly to his chest as he possibly could. He'd spared a thought to stowing the weapon in a locker Zolan had provided for just such a purpose, but after all these years of 'gate travel he'd learned that keeping armed wasn't necessarily a bad thing.

Craning his neck to get a better view of the dais, he caught Carter looking out over the crowd with a deep frown on her face, and he couldn't be sure at that moment if it was because she'd heard him call her name or that something more bothersome was worrying her.

"Yo! Carter!" She might not be able to hear him, but up ahead a small group of Yahut turned at the sound of his voice, and possibly seeing the look of dogged determination on his face, they moved aside to let him though.

"Sir!" Carter waved to him, her expression wavering between a grimace as people brusquely bustled past her, and a genuine smile at seeing him approaching her position.

Jack cleared the crowd and skirted past the DHD to take the dais steps two at a time. "How goes the evacuation?" he asked as he reached the top, looking back over the assembly, which extended out of the main complex and back into the first compartment of the Yahut city. "I thought you said we were nearly done?"

"The city is deceivingly large, sir, and First Leader Zolan's estimate of numbers may have been slightly short."

"Ya think?" Jack turned back from the crowd and stood aside to let a young couple pass by him and through the open 'gate. "What about the library?"

"Daniel, Teesan and a small number of volunteers managed to get it packed up in fairly short order. The boxes have already gone through with some of the colony elders."

"Right." Families continued to push past them, and to one side of Carter, Teesan was speaking soft, encouraging words as they stepped hesitantly into the wormhole. Jack turned his attention back to the crowd, which didn't appear to be getting any thinner. "Where's Zolan?"

"He went through with the first batch of refugees, sir. Felt he could best serve his people by being there when they arrived on the other side."

"Whatever happened to the captain going down with his ship?"

"I don't think Zolan read the naval handbook. He did mention something about returning to help with the rest of the evacuation after the first thirty eight minute window shut the 'gate down, though I'm not sure he's going to be able to do that."

"Why is that?"

Sam held up her diagnostic tool with the monitor facing outwards, not that Jack had any hope of understanding what the screen was obviously telling her. "The 'gate needs a considerable amount of power just to form and maintain a wormhole, and the ring generator can't fully replace the amount we're using now. We really need to get everyone through the 'gate within this window. If these readings are correct, I don't think we'll get another chance."

"And you told Zolan this before he left?"

Sam stowed the device and shrugged one shoulder. "I told him that using the 'gate takes away yet more power from their already dangerously low supply, but he either didn't care or didn't understand. Can't blame him, though. It's got to be tough giving up your home and forcing your people to move—"

"For their own good."

Sam looked across at Teesan, who appeared pre-occupied with a small child. "Yes, sir, and for that they only have our word."

Jack smiled thinly; it was an argument he'd heard plenty of times before. Trust was hard fought for even with the most sincere of motives. "Have we heard from the SGC?"

"They sent through a naquadah generator and a few extra supplies I asked for just before we started sending the Yahut through the 'gate."

"Only one?"

Sam waited for a break in the crowd and switched to Jack's side of the dais. "One should be more than enough to power the city's essential system in the short term, especially with the Yahut out of the equation. I'll need more time to do a detailed assessment of the daily power requirements and applying them to long term consumption when it comes to having a population in situ. This isn't exactly like trying to power the Enkaran village, sir. We could be talking dozens of generators over a very long time. Right now I'm more concerned with being able to balance the power in an unoccupied city."

"And you're positive one's enough?"

"Absolutely. I'm not looking to power the entire city right down to it individual energy needs, just those essential for maintaining structural integrity and minimal life-support. To be perfectly honest, sir, with all the offworld activities the SGC is currently engaged in, our supply of naquadah generators is getting low. I have to weigh up demand against supply. One should be more than adequate for what we're trying to do here."

"Okay, well…"

"Once we've stabilized the situation here, it should be an easy task to bring in more naquadah generators to cope with the returning population. Severing the ring generator and powering the city with the generator is only the first step. The next will be to shut down the dynamo-like function of the 'gate and run those systems off our generators-and determine whether doing so will create even more problems. I'm not prepared to take any unnecessary risks."

"What's wrong with leaving the ring generator to run the outpost? From what you said, it was doing a fine job before the Yahut came along."

Sam smiled at a passing child who tried to offer her up a doll. After a moment of quiet conversation and reassurance that the toy would indeed be welcomed on the other side, she saw the girl and her family through the 'gate. "It was, yes," she said, straitening up and moving back to let more refugees pass. "However, the level of degradation of the crystals is a result of age and poor maintenance. Eventually, they'll fail completely and the shield will collapse almost immediately. I'd like to have something in place long before that happens."

~oOo~

The wall before Teal'c was totally covered in Ancient script, from the elegantly curved ceiling that supported the transparent domed roof, down to the hard floor of the ampitheater with its tiny, intricate tile mosaics depicting various marine creatures. For a brief moment he was reminded of the inside of a typical Goa'uld vessel, with its golden walls adorned with hieroglyphics. If one was not familiar with the language then they would be unaware that the walls spoke of the heroic deeds of their egotistic master. Were the Ancients that far different from the Goa'uld in this regard? Or could it be that they were more similar than first appearances would seem, and therefore the writing on the walls would be nothing more than fanciful regales of long dead deeds. History was a matter for the scribes.

As he continued down one side of the ampitheater towards where Daniel Jackson was currently standing, he saw very few breaks in the text or flaws in the wall that might denote a concealed entry. "Daniel Jackson," he called out, abandoning the wall and walking towards his teammate. "Are these walls not similar to those at Kheb?"

A frown settled on Daniel Jackson's brow and Teal'c wondered for a moment if he'd unintentionally confused him in some manner, aware as he was that his teammate still had difficulties remembering minor details of his pre-ascension life. _His first ascension_, Teal'c hastily reminded himself.

"What did Jack tell you?" his friend asked with undisguised suspicion.

"Of what do you wish to know?"

"About Kheb. Wait!" Daniel rested one finger against his lip in thought, and then said in a passable O'Neill voice, "'Lotsa words but not a whole lotta sense.' That sound about right?"

Teal'c's brow rose appreciatively and he was forced to concede the win to Daniel. "I believe O'Neill's description was quite similar."

Daniel straightened up and moved away from the wall he was investigating to a point in the center of the amphitheater. "You know, Teal'c, the words made sense. Jack just needed to have a little more faith."

"O'Neill is not a man for whom faith comes easily."

Daniel sighed and turned back to the wall. "Tell me about it."

"I believe a talent with languages may have proved helpful at the time."

"Yeah, and we both know Jack playing the 'dumb' card will only work so many times. Ancient is a nearly a direct alphabetical swap with English and most of the time only requires a basic understanding of Latin to get the general gist of what is being conveyed. All teams in the field carry an alphabet list and book of commonly used words and phrases to assist with in-the-field assessments of any potential Ancient find."

Teal'c took in his friend's sincere expression and, with a small nod, turned back to the wall he was inspection. "So it may well be this is not simply a wall of decorative writing?"

"If it is, then the Ancients went to a lot of effort for a pleasing décor… so, no. And given that there are only a few walls covered in script, it's looking more and more like this was a later addition to the complex. Probably much like the coupler boxes Sam found behind the Stargate."

"Something hidden in plain sight?" Teal'c suggested.

"If the Ancients operating this facility at the time of the exodus wanted to make sure anyone returning here would know what to look for, then yes. Remember those redundancies we mentioned earlier? If they anticipated being gone for a long period of time, then it makes sense to not only have their operations manual backed up in the monitoring equipment somewhere, but to have it written someplace others might find it."

"I believe it makes sense to you, Daniel Jackson."

"Okay," Daniel agreed, "maybe not so much a 'how to' manual, but at least a reference as to where to find the equipment that runs this place. Or why go to all the trouble to set up the ring generator in the first place if they never intended for someone to return?"

"There is a phrase O'Neill would consider an appropriate response."

"Huh! There is?"

"'All cryptic and not so knowing.'"

Daniel's jaw dropped and his brow rose appreciatively. "He actually said that? Not to an Ancient, I hope."

Keeping his face schooled, Teal'c replied in a deadpan tone, "I believe O'Neill was referring to you in your ascended state at the time."

"He was?"

"O'Neill is quite wise."

Daniel smiled thinly. "Yes, well the young do not always do as they are told."

Teal'c looked puzzled. "Are you referring to O'Neill as being young?"

"Tit for tat, Teal'c," Daniel muttered under his breath, but quite sure Teal'c had heard him. "So, where were we?"

"We are standing in an ampitheater looking for a concealed room."

"I wasn't talking literally." Daniel walked to the wall at the end of the amphitheater and turned to face the Stargate at the far distant end. The crowd had thinned appreciatively, and glancing at his watch, he saw that there was only another ten minutes before the thirty eight minute window was up and the 'gate would shut down. Looking down the right side of the ampitheater, his left, he counted the entrances. There were three of them, including one that had been modified by the Yahut to serve as an entrance to their city. To his right, he counted two entrances: One directly opposite to its mate on the other side, and another opposite to the very end entrance on the left. There was an obvious space on the left-side center of the room.

Crossing to the vacant space, Daniel lifted his glasses from his nose and perched them on the top of his head. Instantly nose to wall with the surface, he let his hands run over the stocky text, feeling every groove and dip in the façade.

"Here," he whispered, suddenly aware that Teal'c was standing beside him. "There's something here."

"How can you tell?"

"Feel the wall, Teal'c. Just put your hands up and press them hard against the writing. Close your eyes if you have to."

"What is it you wish me to find?"

"That would be cheating. Tell me what you feel."

Teal'c closed his eyes and focused on the wall, not really sure what Daniel Jackson had intended for him to find. Almost instantly he felt warmth trickling into his fingertips and palms, as though the wall itself was heated. He moved his right hand and stretched it out sideways as far as it would go and suddenly he felt cold. Bringing his hand back to its original position, he moved his left hand in the same manner, but it stayed in contact with the wall's warm surface.

"There is something behind this wall."

Daniel nodded, but appeared fixated on the writing in front of him. He took a step back and nodded for Teal'c to do the same. When they were both clear of the wall, Daniel reached out and touched a combination of symbols in sequence, pausing momentarily as if self-checking his choices. There was no flash of light or lighting up of the symbols, but when Daniel pressed the last character a soft snick could be heard and the wall split into two doors that parted to reveal a room beyond.

It became obvious almost the instant the doors opened that the outpost control room had been vacuum-sealed when the Ancients had abandoned the facility. Air rushed into the room with such force that both he and Teal'c took stumbling steps forwards before they could regain their balance.

The room was dimly lit, and while Teal'c searched for his flashlight, Daniel pulled the radio out of his pocked and squeezed the comm. "Jack, this is Daniel."

"_Yep, go ahead,"_ came Jack's tinny reply.

"Open sesame."

"_You found it?"_

Cocking an eyebrow at Teal'c, Daniel smiled and said, "Yeah, it was hidden in plain sight."

The sound of Jack's voice as it came through the radio was slightly muffled as he tried to hold two conversations. _"Carter, Daniel's found the door,"_ and then turning back to Daniel, _"Coming to you now."_

TBC


	6. Chapter 6

Beyond lay a room that wasn't large in comparison to what they had seen in the rest of the complex, but it was poorly lit. Natural light filtered in through a small transparent domed roof, and left Daniel wondering exactly how much of that light was getting past the shield from the star this planet was orbiting. Perhaps the dome was meant to be a power-saving feature, much like he suspected the one in the amphitheater was, impressive décor aside.

Unlike the other buildings that formed part of the outpost, this one was definitely built for one purpose only. One wall was completely lined with what Sam assumed to be storage lockers; a fact that would be confirmed or denied once Jack and Teal'c had managed to pry one of them open. The wall with the concealed door was similar to those in the main amphitheater, in that it was covered with lines of Ancient script, except here the script framed several mutely colored frescos depicting scenes of marine life. The last two walls met at a rather acute angle and curved upwards towards the dome, giving the room a slight semi-circular feel.

"Over here," Daniel called over his shoulder; the beam from his flashlight settling on what he thought was a cloth covered workbench. "I think I've found something."

As Sam approached, Daniel pulled the cloth away to reveal a piece of technology she was only too familiar with. "Well, at least I have some idea on how to work this thing,"

"That's right. You and Jacob found one of these at Dakara, right?"

"Something like that," she conceded with just a tinge of regret in her tone. For a brief moment Sam had totally forgotten about Dakara and the events that had ultimately led to her father's death. At the time, she had incorrectly assumed that Jacob's sometimes far-away expression was from the stress of the moment, and she could have easily accounted for his weariness in the same way. She was wrong, and was suddenly hit with a surge of misplaced anger at losing her father when he could have so easily been saved. Unaware, as they were at the time, of Daniel's fate, Sam had found her grief compounded and virtually all-consuming. Losing two of the people she was closest to in her life, at almost the same time, had been overpowering.

Now, though, she looked across at Daniel, who was regarding her with a puzzled expression, and wondered for a moment whether she'd revealed too much of her private grief. "Sorry," she said with a small, forced smile. "I guess I was kinda hoping we'd find something similar to the technology on Atlantis. It makes sense that this," she indicated towards the console, "would be more in keeping with the temple at Dakara."

Daniel smiled back and seemed to accept her explanation. "I'm almost sorry I missed all the fun."

Her head shot up. "What?"

"At Dakara. Sounds like you, Jacob and Selmac had the situation well under control."

"Well, I wouldn't say under control, but we did have your notes to help us out." Sam shucked her pack, and carefully unpacking her tablet PC, she let her gaze wander over the Ancient device. "As I recall, my father touched the surface and it activated a view screen behind him. He didn't have the ATA gene."

"So, with any luck it'll work the same for me." Daniel held his right hand up and raised his brow questioningly. "Shall I?"

Sam opened one of the Velcro tab pockets on her vest and took out her diagnostic tool. "Probably best to keep an eye on the power levels while we do this, just in case we experience any more events."

With his hand wavering in the air, Daniel looked past Sam to the outpost amphitheater and then back to the device. "Won't turning this thing on use up more power? I don't mean to state the obvious here, but wouldn't it make sense that the Ancient's put this device in some sort of power-down mode to conserve energy?"

"And us turning it on might hasten the power drain? I had thought of that, but I'm guessing they factored in the eventuality of someone other than themselves finding this place and built in some sort of reserve power supply just for this equipment. Of course, that only works on the assumption that whoever finds this place doesn't have a ZPM with them."

"We haven't found any evidence this place was powered by a ZPM, yet."

Sam checked the analytical readout on the hand-held device and screwed her nose up at the readings. "Well, let's hope our theories are all right, because I'm showing a three percent decrease in power in the last hour, although I'm fairly sure the 'gate was responsible for a lot of that. Actually, I'm kinda surprised it wasn't greater."

At the other end of the room, Jack and Teal'c had given up on trying to open one of the storage lockers and were concentrating their search elsewhere, relying on their flashlights to cut a path into the darker recesses.

"Carter!" Jack called out, holding the light to his face first and then flicking it in her direction. "Any time you're ready with the lights would be good."

"We're working on it, sir," she called back.

"Ah, Sam?" Daniel slid his gaze from her down to his hand and wiggled his fingers. "Are we ready?"

"Oh! Yeah… go ahead."

Daniel mumbled something under his breath that Sam couldn't quite catch, and hesitantly reached out and touched the nearest surface. Almost instantly the wall behind him erupted in a medley of electric blues and whites as a massive view screen sprang to life, rippling Ancient text scrolling across its surface.

"Whoa!" Daniel twisted away from the console and towards the screen.

Sam stepped around the console and pulled up next to him, her gaze flicking between the screen and her diagnostic tool. "Can you read it?"

"Ah, yeah." He squinted at the screen, and then after a few seconds pulled his glasses off and hung them from a pocket on his vest. "The dialect is very old, but I think it's some sort of directory."

"Of what?"

"Hey! Cool!" Jack stepped up behind them with Teal'c trailing a few feet away. "What does it say?"

"I was just getting to that," Daniel said coolly over his shoulder. Turning back, he held out a hand to the screen and moved it across the Ancient text without actually touching. "It repeats every few seconds so I'd say this is like a root or system directory. Sam, how did you interface with the weapon at Dakara?"

Sam took the tablet out from under her arm and sat it on the console. "We hooked the laptop directly to the device and used it to help calibrate the wave frequency of the weapon to that of the Replicators. The actual calibrations themselves were made by adjusting the settings on selected blocks. Took a few attempts before we found the right setting, though."

Daniel bit down on his lip in thought. "Okay, well, I'm guessing the similarity between this device and the ones at Dakara and P4X-639 end at the purely aesthetic level, each serving a completely different function." He pointed over his shoulder at the console, while still reading off the screen. "This one appears to be the control center responsible for maintaining the outpost's primary functions, including an artificial core that houses the planetary shield generator."

"I just knew there had to be a core," Sam said in barely restrained triumph. "I mean, there had to be one just to keep the city tethered to something stable. I do think it's a little odd that the Ancients would house the shield generator equipment in the core."

"Maintenance issues aside?"

"Those, too. It could be that there's an entirely other facility in the core, but then why have the monitoring equipment here, unless this is a back-up console."

"Redundancy?"

Sam laughed lightly. "I'm starting to think you like that word."

"Only when talking about the Ancients and their technology."

"Well, there is a good reason for having redundant systems when using technology as advanced as this."

Turning away from the screen, Daniel leaned over the console and ran his hands across its uneven surface, quietly translation the writing on each of the perfect square blocks. "I think the same principal of control works with this device as it did with the other two, the object being we can read from the screen, but any adjustments have to be made by finding the correct balance between the blocks."

"Just like Dakara," Sam surmised. "It's not so easy."

"No, I don't suppose it would be," Daniel conceded as he straightened up and massaged his neck muscles. "Interfacing your laptop with the console should at least cut out the need to keep referring back to the screen every few minutes, but it will mean you'll need me here to translate."

"No question about it." Sam turned her laptop on and then pulled out her flashlight while waiting for it to boot up. She shone the light on the bank of equipment lockers on the far side of the room. "Somewhere in all of this, I'm hoping we'll find some spare crystals to replace the broken ones with." She shrugged indecisively. "The conduits feeding power to this complex have been running at such a depleted level that I can't really be sure what's going to happen when we sever the city completely. Being able to replace some of the damaged crystals should help."

Jack nudged Teal'c with his left elbow and tossed a thumb over his shoulder to the bank of equipment lockers beyond. "Come on, big guy. Those lockers won't open on their own."

~oOo~

Carter's theory that there wouldn't be enough power to let Zolan return to his city had been spot on, when only moments after Daniel had found the entrance to the concealed control room the wormhole had shut down and the outpost was hit with another massive power drain. Lights dimmed, and in some places cut out completely. According to Carter, the shield "winked". Not exactly knowing what she meant, Jack could only take her worried expression as further proof that it was only a matter of time before the power reserve was depleted and they would lose the shield completely.

"You're totally sure about this, Carter? I mean there's no way this thing is going to blow up the moment we flip the switch?" Next to Jack, seated on a small box provided by one of the Yahut engineers, was their only naquadah generator. Despite it being familiar and outwardly innocuous, he was none-the-less too familiar with what happened when they blew up, deliberately or not.

He and Teal'c were inside the first and largest of the city modules, at a power juncture Carter had isolated as being a primary distribution point for power flowing from the Stargate. Jack didn't need the detail, only a place to set up the generator and flip the switch when the time came.

"_Nothing to worry about, sir. I've set the generator to start up on its lowest setting, so all you'll have to do is increase the output incrementally once I've severed the first coupler."_

She made it all sound so easy. Jack eyed the naquadah generator with more than a little suspicion. "Incrementally. Gotcha." It was a cakewalk, he foolishly told himself in an almost futile attempt to bring some levity to his thoughts.

As if reading his mind, Carter quickly added, _"We have to do this incrementally or we risk overloading the power relays, and if that happens there's no way to replace the control crystals."_

"So you're _sure_ about this?"

Jack could hear the barest hint of exasperation in her voice. _"I'm sure. The generator is fixed with an emergency shut-down feature just in case we happen to encounter any feedback."_

"Feedback," he grumbled after he'd broken radio contact with her.

"You do not believe this plan will work, O'Neill?" Teal'c had been wandering this section of the now deserted Yahut city, inspecting buildings like he was looking for something or someone. Jack wasn't sure why, because everyone had left, save the wily little historian and one of Zolan's engineers, who was currently with Carter at the Stargate.

"Na, it's not that, Teal'c. Carter knows what she's doing."

"Colonel Carter appears most thorough in her preparation for the energy transfer."

Of that, Jack had no doubt. "It's our plan B that bothers me most."

Teal'c cocked one eyebrow in enquiry. "I do not recall a plan B being discussed."

Jack stood back from the generator, legs spread, hands resting on the butt of his P90. "Yeah, and that's the problem. If this doesn't work, then the idea is to fall back to the 'gate and dial us the hell out of here."

"Indeed."

"And if the 'gate is out of juice?"

Teal'c gave himself a beat of silence before answering. "Then we would still be able to dial the Stargate manually."

Letting his head fall back, Jack let out a low moan. "Yes, because that's always worked so well in the past."

"I do not understand your concern, O'Neill."

"Oh, let's just say that sometimes it's better to bet on shorter odds, and I just don't see that here. No power equals no 'gate and no shield. In my book, that leaves us floating in space on the end of a massive ball and chain, in a city that may or may not be airtight." Jack walked up to the closest wall and rapped on it with the butt of his weapon. "Wonder if this place is space-worthy?"

"For what purpose?"

"Plan C. Plan A and B fail. We lose the shield. Just thinking how long we've got until the remaining air bleeds out." He turned to lean against the wall, chin tipped to his chest. "Am I the only one that has a problem with all of this?"

"If we save the city the Yahut will feel indebted to us and allow Daniel Jackson access to the wealth of Ancient information the outpost undoubtedly holds."

Jack shrugged, not entirely sure both sides of the argument were evenly matched. "Quid pro quo?" Teal'c dipped his head by way of an answer and turned away. "Oy… way too old for this crap."

~oOo~

"Daniel?"

Her radio squelched briefly before he answered. _"Here, Sam."_

"The general and Teal'c are at the central power juncture in the city and Mikah and I are at the 'gate. The couplers are exposed and we're ready to disconnect the first one on your mark."

"_Have we got a few minutes?"_

She really wanted to say no. "Something wrong?"

"_No, but I've managed to access a map of the outpost that includes the Yahut city."_

"What?" Sam fixed her radio with a look of mild disbelief, almost as though Daniel could see her reaction. "That's impossible, unless the computer has some type of automated mapping function or intuitive programming."

"_Whatever it's done, I can trace the power conduits from the coupler housings all the way through the city."_

She figured the computer was mapping the power flow rather than the city itself. "Well that's rather convenient. What about the 'gate?"

"_Just looking at that now. If I'm reading this right, then there's a panel behind one of the walls in this room that used to house three ZPM's. I'm not registering their presence so it's a safe bet they've either been totally depleted or taken."_

Sam bit down on her lip and almost swore. "Damn it! I'd really like to take a look at what you're seeing; if we just had more time. Can you see the power flow to the tether?"

"_Yeah, about that."_

"What?"

"_The computer is registering a definite flow, but there's something… different."_

Sam was trying to picture in her mind exactly what Daniel was seeing. "Different? How so?"

"_I really need you here to figure this out, Sam."_ Sam could hear the frustration in his tone. _"I don't think what we're seeing is so much the conduits themselves but the level of power passing through them and, if that's right, then the amount of energy making it to the tether and down to the shield generator is more like a trickle."_

"Compared to what? I need more details, Daniel."

"_I know,"_ Daniel said with a note of resignation. _"If I had to make a guess, I'd say compared to the rest of the city and the outpost itself. The map has a type of legend depicting power flow with selected colors, and if I'm right, there seems to be a diminished rate from a defined point along the tether and all the way down to the core."_

Sam frowned and squeezed the outer edge of her eyes in an attempt to push away a headache. "Okay," she said wearily. "Either something is disrupting it at some point along the tether or the power is bleeding off before it gets there. Whichever way I look at it, there's not a whole lot can be done until we take the city off the grid and onto generator power."

"_Yeah, choiceless. I get that. Shall we do this?"_

Sam looked over at Mikah, and the diminutive engineer afforded her a lopsided grin. "You ready?" she asked, not altogether sure from the haunted look in his eyes that he was. "Nothing to it, really."

"So you have said," Mikah replied unsteadily. "It is most unfortunate that First Leader Zolan is not here to assist us."

Sam smiled wryly, admitting only to herself that being somewhere else would be a far better option. She squeezed her radio mic again. "Ready as we're ever going to be, Daniel."

TBC


	7. Chapter 7

The lesson had been brief, but Sam had enough confidence in Mikah's ability to understand her diagnostic tool and tell her when things were about to go from bad to worse. Truth be told, she was quietly impressed with the young engineer's quick grasp of Earth technology; which really shouldn't have come as much of a surprise considering the Yahut had managed to expand the outpost beyond its design limits.

Mikah stood on the opposite side of the coupler box, eyes fixed on the tiny read-out screen. On her knees and silently cursing the Ancients for laying down an uncomfortably variegated floor, Sam looked up at Mikah, her gloved hand hovering above the massive coupler.

"_We're about as ready as we're going to be here, Sam,"_ Daniel's voice floated out at her from her radio. _"Jack?"_

"_Finger on the button and waiting for the fanfare." _

Sam ducked her head and grinned at the general's sarcastic snip. "Okay." She got a secure grip on the coupler. "On three. One, two…"

In the city, Jack and Teal'c stood above the naquadah generator as Carter read off the count. _"On three. One, two, three…" _

What remaining lighting in the city suddenly went out leaving them virtually blind, except for their flashlights and the soft glow from the instrument panel on the naquadah generator. Jack turned the device on and let out a long held breath when it hummed to life, bringing the city with it.

In the control room, Daniel could see instantly when Sam disconnected the coupler. The image on the massive screen flickered and danced as the colors he'd associated with varying power levels, brightened and changed all over the place.

Beside him, Teesan hung onto the Ancient console with a vice-like grip, his beady eyes tracking the power changes. "It is working, yes?"

Daniel smiled tightly. "I hope so, but we're not done yet. Sam still has to disconnect the last coupler while Jack and Teal'c increase the naquadah generator's power output."

Teesan looked momentarily confused. "But the city is already awake? Should not one of these couplers be enough without disconnecting the second?"

"It's not about the city, Teesan. It's about having enough power to keep the shield operational. Sam knows exactly what she's doing."

"Of course," the older man said quietly.

Daniel focused back on the screen and the varying power levels across the outpost, frowning when he traced a line down to the core. "Ah, Sam?"

"_Here,"_ she replied sounding a little out of breath. _"I'm just about to disconnect the second coupler."_

"You might wanna hold off on that for a moment."

"_Daniel?" _

"I don't know. Something looks wrong here. There was a marked power increase to the outpost, but very little of it was diverted down the tether to the core."

"_Without knowing exactly what you're looking at, it's very hard for me to determine what's going on, but if I had to guess, I'd say the outpost is diverting the extra power to other critical systems first."_

Which didn't make a whole lot of sense to Daniel. "Wouldn't the shield be considered critical?"

"_Ideally, yes, but I get the feeling the program that runs this facility is highly intuitive and has been taking power from previously critical systems and diverting it to areas like life-support and environmental controls."_

"Over compensating for the added population," he agreed in a low voice.

"_Keep an eye on it for now, but there's not a whole lot can be done until the city is functioning under its own power supply."_

"Will do."

"_Disconnecting the second coupler now,"_ Sam reported, and Daniel turned his attention back to the screen. The mesh of colored lines that represented the outpost's power flow held steady for a few seconds until the grid suddenly flared intensely, causing Daniel and Teesan to step back from the console, their hands raised to protect their eyes.

"What the!" Daniel staggered to one side, almost colliding with Teesan who was trying to steady himself. Around them the room shook and the viewscreen wavered, the image it displayed now pulsing and overlayed by lines of blinking red Ancient script.

Daniel pushed himself away from Teesan and into the console, gripping the edge for support as the tremor slowly started to abate. Slapping his vest, he scrambled to find his radio. "Sam? Jack?"

~oOo~

Guided by instinct, Sam dropped the coupler the moment she disconnected it from the 'gate, as the wall behind her and Mikah exploded with enough force to send her flying across the small space and into the bottom step of the dais. Beside her, and several feet away, Mikah laid sprawled half on his side, his right hand slapping the ground until he came into contact with the coupler box on the other side. In what seemed like slow motion, she watched as though in a daze as he struggled to sit upright and shield himself from the sparks of the electrical explosion.

Debris hung in the air for a second before it came crashing down on them both, bouncing and skittering across the floor in tune with the tremor that rumbled around them. Suddenly everything was silent. Dust and the acrid smell of burned electrics filled the air, causing Sam to cough a few times before pulling her T-shirt up over her mouth and nose. Somehow in all of this, her BDU jacket and vest had been totally ripped open, her radio hanging limply from its holster.

"Daniel?" she called around a cough, frowning when the radio failed to sound a connection. She tried again. "Daniel? General?"

"Ah, Colonel Carter?" Mikah was now bent forward and trying to climb to his feet, his head cocked in the direction of the 'gate. "The ring!"

Sam followed his gaze and with a groan of total defeat she realized why everything was so quiet. The ring generator on the Stargate was no longer working.

"Okay, that's not good," she said clambering up the dais steps until she was kneeling over the base of the 'gate. The odd little second ring that constituted the ring generator was totally dead, and for the first time she could see writing etched all over its unnaturally smooth surface.

"Why are we not dead?" Mikah asked, climbing up beside her. "I assumed if the generator ceased to operate then the planetary shield would collapse, jettisoning the water out into space and us along with it."

Sam took a quick inventory of their surroundings. The wall behind the 'gate was a mass of exposed circuitry and shattered control crystals. She knew without a doubt, and without the need for a closer inspection, that there would be no way to repair the damage; a by-pass of critical circuits would likely be the best they could hope for.

"I don't know," she conceded sourly. "But we're not going to find out by sitting here. Let's get back to the control room."

~oOo~

"God!" Jack swore as he rolled onto his back, various aches and pains suddenly pestering him for attention. It was pitch black and a little disconcerting when only minutes ago both he and Teal'c had been hunched over the naquadah generator, waiting for the lights to come to full power. "Teal'c?"

"I am next to you, O'Neill."

Jack turned his head in the direction of Teal'c's voice. "What hit us?"

"I believe it was Colonel Carter's 'sure bet'," Teal'c grumbled, and Jack could hear him scrambling about in the dark. Seconds later the beam from a flashlight cut through the air in a sweeping arc and settled on one much-damaged naquadah generator. Smoke rose from a hole of torn and twisted metal and exposed inner circuits of the small device. "The generator appears to have sustained serious damage."

"Yeah, just a little. I'm surprised we're alive to even be having this conversation."

"Did Colonel Carter not mention a failsafe mechanism?"

"Crap… Carter!" Jack reached for his radio and pressed the comm. "Carter? Daniel? Come in?"

"_Jack! You're alive!"_

"Painstakingly so." Jack rolled the shoulder with the radio attached to it and winced. "What about Carter?"

"_I've been trying to reach her for several minutes, but either her radio has been destroyed or something is blocking the signal. Jack, I think when Sam disconnected the second coupler the increased power to the outpost caused a feedback surge."_

Jack eyed the still-smouldering naquadah generator. "Something ripped the crap out of the generator, that's for sure. You're closer to Carter's position than we are. Can you get to her?"

"_We've tried to unseal the doors between this room and the amphitheater, but the outpost has initiated some sort of emergency shut-down and sealed us in. I'm trying to access the door control mechanism now."_

"Great," Jack muttered under his breath. "Look, we're wandering about in the dark here. Teal'c and I are going to try and work our way back to the 'gate. Keep trying to raise Carter."

"_Jack. Teesan says there should be an emergency release on the lower left side of the blast doors separating the city from the amphitheater. Once you get the first door open, you'll find a second, similar release mechanism on the inner door. You need to open both to activate the third door."_

"Third door? What?" Jack quirked his eyebrows at Teal'c questioningly, but Teal'c merely frowned.

"_When the Yahut added the city to the outpost, they installed a two-tiered bulkhead system to the first compartment, in case of decompression or any other type of emergency. The third blast door, on the outpost side of the complex, already existed. The Yahut have rigged it so the doors work in unison with each other, requiring you to open two to activate the third."_

"Like an airlock?" Jack could hear Teal'c walking away from him, the beam from his flashlight slicing through the darkness and lighting up the massive blast doors.

"_I think it works along the same principals, yes. Once you active the second door, the first will close behind you."_

"O'Neill, I have found the door mechanism." Teal'c's bulky frame partially obscured the portion of the blast door lit up by his flashlight. "It appears undamaged by the explosion."

"Small mercies," Jack growled under his breath and thumbed his radio. "Daniel, Teal'c is working on the door and I'm going to grab what's left of the naquadah generator and head back to you. Keep trying to raise Carter."

"_Yep. The complex is running on emergency power so you should be able to see the 'gate once you're through into the amphitheater. You'll find the same locking mechanism on the ampitheater side of the city. You need to close if off once you're clear._

"Roger that."

~oOo~

"Give me a break!" Daniel's grasp of Ancient was good-written and spoken-but right now the script on the giant viewscreen was scrolling faster than he could keep up with. To someone used to working with these systems it would be a snap to understand what was happening and what needed to be done to help the dying outpost. But their only hope of truly comprehending the technology was out of radio reach and on the other side of a seemingly impenetrable blast door.

"Doctor Jackson?" Lost in the complexities of what he was trying to translate, Daniel had all but forgotten about Teesan, the historian having decided to make himself useful by exploring through the storage lockers and cages at the far end of the room. "I believe I have found something."

Daniel stepped away from the console and scrubbed his hands through his hair in frustration. Gathering his composure, he smiled tightly to himself before looking over his shoulder at Teesan. "What have you got?"

"Are these not the crystals you have been seeking?" Teesan held a crystal in each hand, one red the other translucent, both enough to bring a genuine smile to Daniel's face.

"Where did you find those?" he asked in disbelief, quickly covering the distance between them and plucking one of the crystals from Teesan's hand.

"They were inside one of the lockers here."

"They were?" Daniel looked at the now open locker and frowned. "I realize you people didn't know about this room, but did you explore the others in the complex fully?"

Teesan nodded briskly, almost over exaggerating the movement. "We did. Many times. There were many compartments in the other rooms we couldn't access. The timing," he said with a forced smile, "does seem a little convenient."

The wall of lockers, a good dozen or so in total, all had their doors slightly ajar. Daniel was absolutely positive they were locked when he and Teal'c first gained access to the room. He chewed on his lip as he scrutinized the now open compartments. "I wonder if they opened automatically when the complex lost power. Like some type of emergency function to allow the outpost's engineers instant access to all available resources?"

Teesan shrugged, clearly lacking an opinion.

"Okay, well, I need to get the door to the amphitheater open. Why don't you keep searching through the lockers and make up some type of inventory of what you find?"

~oOo~

"Daniel!" Sam slammed her hands down on the location of the hidden door in frustration and, with her head tipped down to her chest; she let out a forced breath. "Damn it!"

Mikah stood at Sam's shoulder and held a flashlight at the wall. "How did Doctor Jackson gain entry to this room?"

Sam stepped away and thumbed the comm on her radio, once again being met with total silence. Not even so much as a squelch of static. "I have no idea and there wasn't time to ask him. I think the room is shielded in some manner, which kind of explains why he can't hear us banging on the walls. That… or the walls are too thick, but I don't think so."

"Is it possible that he and Teesan were injured when the power went out?"

Sam winced and shrugged absently. "I was kind of hoping to ignore that scenario." She glared hard at her damaged radio and then back at the wall. "There has to be some way into this place."

Suddenly there was a sound of metal grinding on metal from somewhere behind her, and Sam turned back towards the distant 'gate. She couldn't see anything in the dark, but the sound was being amplified in the vast emptiness of the ampitheater.

"General? Teal'c?" she called out, not even sure they were the source of the sound. She lifted her flashlight above her head and shone it towards where she thought the city entrance was, but there was nothing to be seen. The doors were too far away.

Seconds later, a beam of light carved up the darkened space. "Carter!" the general called out. If she squinted, Sam could just make out their silhouetted figures as they broke through the darkness.

"Sir!" Sam called back, a surge of relief cancelling out whatever adrenaline she had left. "Are you two okay?"

"We're good," Jack called back, "though your naquadah generator has seen better days."

Crap! She could only imagine what damage the power surge might have done to its circuitry, but smiled inwardly that the failsafe protocols she'd developed for the device had obviously stopped it from exploding. The explosive might of just one generator would have been more than enough to take out the entire complex and a large part of the planet.

Her teammates closed in on her position and she could just make out the generator nestled in the general's arms. In the dim light afforded by Teal'c's flashlight, she spotted some scoring on the outer casing. Not much at this distance, but enough that she doubted being able to adequately repair it with the equipment they had brought with them.

"Phew," Jack blew out a loud breath as he stopped in front of Sam and settled the naquadah generator on the ground. It was then that she was able to run her flashlight over its outer casing and see the true extent of the damage. It looked bad. There was circuitry, charred and fused together, spilling out from under where the LED display had been. The display itself was offline and hanging by one melted and twisted wire. "Ah, not sure you can do much with this thing, Carter. Lit up like a proverbial Christmas tree."

"I bet," she mumbled as she knelt down beside it. "I need to check out the extent of the internal damage first, but to do that we have to get this door open." She waved a hand over her shoulder at the wall and then rose to her feet. "I've been trying to contact you and Daniel, but I think my radio was hit during the blast."

Jack pulled his flashlight out of his vest and ran the beam up and down Carter, noting a small smear of dried blood from a cut on the right side of her head above the hairline, and a coating of dust and fine debris on her uniform.

"I'm fine, sir," she said in response to his scrutiny. "The surge blasted out the section of the wall containing the control crystals. Mikah and I were thrown backwards towards the 'gate."

Jack settled the beam on Mikah and, finding him in much the same state as Carter, turned it back on her. "What happened to dialling up the power incrementally? Teal'c and I didn't so much as get a count in before the whole place exploded around us."

Sam shook her head. "Honestly, I don't know. Daniel noticed some unusual power readings before the explosion, but I thought they were to do with the excess energy been diverted to critical systems that had been bypassed when the ZPMs were removed. It made sense at the time."

Jack stared at her for a moment, frowning at her explanation, before his eyebrows shot up and he reached for his radio. "Daniel, come in."

"_Jack! Where are you?"_

"Standing outside the door waiting to be let in."

"_What about Sam?"_

Carter stepped forward when Jack waggled his eyebrows at her. "I'm here, Daniel," she said into Jack's radio. "Mikah and I are fine."

"_Oh, thank goodness. I'm having trouble finding the command path to open the doors."_

"What can you see?"

"_A lot of red, flashing warnings all over the place. There's something going on about halfway down the tether. I can read the writing but I can't make sense of it all. My first priority was to get the door open and find you."_

Sam planted her hands on her hips and ducked her head in thought. "Go back to the main command screen if you can."

"_I'm there now."_

"Okay, good. Can you see anything that reads like a security override? I'm not one hundred percent on how the Ancients would have worded it, but essentially it's a command to override every pre-programmed function into the outpost's control computer."

"_What about a secondary by-pass? I can see a command route, but it's not blinking at me."_

"No. I saw that when we first booted up the console. It's a sub-system designed to by-pass less critical base functions. What you're looking for probably isn't immediately obvious because any Ancients operating the console during a power failure would immediately know what to do."

"_Oh…"_ And then a brief pause. _"Okay, got something here. Stand back from the door."_

At that moment, Mikah was the only one standing near the wall and he took several steps backwards and around Teal'c. A few seconds later there was an almost muted hiss and the wall separated into two doors, light flooding out from the room and spilling into the amphitheater.

"Sweet!" Jack stowed his flashlight and reached down to haul up the generator, making sure the damaged section was facing outwards and away from him.

Sam immediately headed for the console and was already trying to interpret the information scrolling past her on the screen. Numbers and words flowed effortlessly together, lit up in the familiar blue color the Ancients loved to use in all their readouts, and a warning red for damaged systems.

"Here," she said pointing to a segment of script on the screen and nodding to Daniel. "Freeze there and bring up the diagnostic box it represents." She watched as Daniel typed in a series of commands on the laptop, enhancing and zooming in on one particular field of information. "What's this say?" she asked, pointing to a specific line of script.

Daniel squinted at the screen, a frown creasing his brow. "Ah, emergency containment? Something about enacting a remote shutdown of the outpost's environment."

"That explains it."

"Carter?" Jack had secured the generator and was now standing at her shoulder. "Wanna explain it to the rest of us?"

"As best I can, sir. I wondered why this room was sealed off and yet the rest of the off-buildings were still open and accessible. The computer was trying to preserve its own command center, therefore locking it down and diverting power to this console."

"The blast door separating the Yahut city from the complex shut as soon as we were clear. Was that something the Yahut built into the structure when they added the city modules?"

"Mikah showed me the manual lockdown system to the first module earlier, but they only installed the two secondary doors, the primary one is part of the original complex and would have been controlled by this command console. I'm surprised it opened at all."

Jack's brow rose in surprise, matched by his slightly agape mouth. "You knew this and yet you didn't say anything before we tried to switch the city to the naquadah generator?"

"Sorry. It didn't seem important at the time and, besides, it should have been a simple power transfer. It never occurred to me that the emergency override system would be this total in its shutdown procedures."

Jack didn't look totally convinced, but after a moment he accepted her explanation with a single-shouldered shrug. "So… what? It would have closed regardless?"

Sam smiled tightly. "I'm guessing the outpost's life support systems are the reason, sir." She looked back up at the monitor; a blueprint of the Ancient outpost spread across its screen. "As well as an emergency power reserve, the complex appears to have a back-up air supply. If the bulkhead to the city was left open then we'd lose what little supply was left. Part of any shutdown procedure is to seal vital areas off from any potential threat, in this case the city."

"And the 'gate? It's not doing its spinny thing. Please tell me we didn't break it, Carter?"

"That's a little bit trickier. Daniel?"

"Ah, yep." Daniel fussed about with the screen again and brought up a three dimensional representation of the Stargate, with conduits leading out from various points on its base and from the DHD.

Sam leaned over and tapped a point on the screen. "Can you zoom in here?" As he toggled the laptop image, the identical representation on the Ancient viewscreen mirrored the action, bringing up a closer view of the conduit system.

"The only thing still active, aside from emergency lighting and some environmental functions, is this command console. I think it's pretty obvious it has its own emergency power. Unfortunately, and I can't quite figure out why at this point, the Stargate is completely offline. That means no one can dial in and we can't dial out."

"What of the residual power stored in the Stargate?" Teal'c asked. "Is it not possible to do a manual dial out?"

Sam shook her head, lips pulled thin into a sour smile. "No. I'd like to test my theory to be sure, but I'm fairly certain the power surge and resulting destruction of the crystal panel behind the 'gate sucked out what little charge there may have been at the very instant I disconnected the last coupler." She moved around the console and stood nose almost pressed to the viewscreen, tracing a line from the Stargate and down the tether. "What surprises me most is that the planetary shield is still functioning, which, by rights, it shouldn't be."

"Independent power source?" Daniel asked.

With a shrug, Sam replied, "Your guess would be as good as mine. I'd say good old-fashioned Ancient redundancies to the rescue… again."

"Ah, Sam?" Daniel pointed to a point on the display, to what looked like a perfect sphere sliced into horizontal and evenly sized portions. Each segment appeared to waver slightly, making the sphere look like it was spinning. "What's this?"

Sam frowned as she tried to interpret a steam of numbers imprinted over the top of the image, and constantly changing. "It's spinning," she said, mostly to herself.

"Carter?"

"Ah, sorry, sir. This shouldn't be happening. What we're seeing is the planet's artificial core, which apparently, much like this complex, has its own emergency power reserve. But…" she trailed off.

"You know how much I hate 'buts', Carter."

"Ah, guys? We're in trouble here."

Jack almost laughed. "And this is news because?"

"Because if I'm reading this right then the power in the core will only last a few days at best. The planetary shield is drawing its power directly from the same reserve and once it's depleted it will collapse."

TBC


	8. Chapter 8

"Okay." Jack scrubbed his hands through his hair in frustration, eyeing each member of his team in turn and noting a measure of exhaustion and stress in their composure. "Two days? Is that an estimate or a guess?"

"An estimate," Carter said with a fair degree of confidence. "And that's assuming nothing else happens to use up what power is left in the core." She stole a glance at the data gliding across the viewscreen and frowned. "The time is constantly being revised, but I suspect it won't be long until we see the outpost's autonomic emergency protocols start to contract the shield in order to protect a lesser volume of water."

Daniel held up a finger. "Ah, about that. I'm no engineer, but wouldn't reducing the amount of volume this sphere holds _actually_ require reducing the volume?"

Jack stared blankly at Daniel until Teal'c came to the rescue by simplifying the question. "What becomes of the water?"

Sam looked across at Mikah, who just shrugged in return. "We don't know," she conceded wryly, as though the two of them had already been considering the problem.

"Well, it has to go somewhere, Carter."

"Yes, sir. The shield has been slowly retracting over time in direct proportion to the amount of power it has available. I figure there must be some sort of flow regulator that releases excess water out through the shield and into space. Failing that, the only other way I can think of to siphon the unwanted volume would be through the 'gate."

Daniel looked over his shoulder at the open door leading to the Stargate. "Ah, that would be bad."

"Ordinarily, no, but if the automated system doesn't register the 'gate as offline and lets the water in, then we're going to be trapped in this room with no escape. The amphitheater will be flooded, and because the computer won't be registering a decrease in water volume, it'll likely keep the wall open until it does."

"Options anyone?" Jack grumbled, looked to his team in turn.

Daniel looked up suddenly from his study of the floor. "What about the Prometheus? Isn't she supposed to be conducting a survey of this system?"

"Tracking the path of a rogue brown dwarf, yeah... I thought about that," Sam said. "But even if we could find a way to reach her, I don't think she'd arrive in time to do us any good."

"Still worth a try."

"Definitely. However, assuming we do manage to contact her, we haven't found a ring platform or any other means of leaving this place."

"Except for the 'gate."

"Except for the 'gate," Sam echoed Daniel. "I think our best course of action for the moment is to determine exactly what caused the feedback when I disconnected the couplers." She looked up again at the large viewscreen and its ever-changing display. "From what Daniel told me after I separated the first coupler, there was an increase in the power being fed down the conduit to the tether, albeit not much of one." Smiling tightly, she crossed to the console, Daniel immediately trailing behind. "Now, either something was disrupting that flow or the computer decided to reroute the excess power to other critical systems. In hindsight, I'm not so sure that was happening."

"Not sure what was happening, Carter?" Jack and the two Yahutians crowded behind the Ancient console, only Teal'c had taken it upon himself to examine the open lockers at the rear of the room.

"It could be that the computer was compensating for the extra power by diverting it elsewhere, which doesn't make sense at all when we know that above everything it's the shield that this planet relies on to maintain its cohesiveness." Sam rested her elbows on the console and peered at the small laptop readout. "Daniel, which of these command functions activates the power flow chart you were reading when we lost power?" Daniel reached over and tapped a sequence of commands on the keyboard, flashing a quick smile when both the tiny monitor and the viewscreen changed at once.

Sam straightened and rounded the console to stand in front of the screen, reaching up to tap at a particular portion of the chart. "Here," she said indicating with her finger by running it down a long line on one cross-section of the diagram. "This is the tether. It separates the city from the core. It's only a guess, but I think a good one, that the core not only houses the planetary shield generator and likely the water generation facility, but also the equipment that regulates the length of the tether. This line here," she pointed to a glowing red tube snaking its way down the length of the tether, "is a representation of the power flowing in the conduit."

"Red is bad?" Jack asked.

"Yes, sir. Daniel, is it possible to zoom in on the tether?"

"Ah, yep… hang on." Daniel toggled the image and a box appeared on the screen, overlaying and enlarging the original image. "Will that work?"

"Perfect, thanks. Uh oh. Looks like I was right. See here," Sam tapped her finger on a blinking dot on the screen. "The power conduits pass through a sub-junction station part way down the tether, before travelling the rest of the way down to the core. I'd say something is disrupting the flow there which in turn caused the feedback."

"Any idea as to the cause, Sam?"

"I'm not sure," she said turning away from the screen and resting her arms on the console. "If I had to take a guess, I'd say it's most likely the same degradation we saw in the command crystals for the outpost. This whole planet has been left un-maintained for so long that vital parts have simply eroded over time."

"Crystals!" Daniel said with a start and quickly turned to Teesan. "Do you still have them?" he asked rolling his wrist over hurriedly.

Teesan fumbled the clasp on his messenger bag and finally drew out the two crystals he had discovered earlier. "I found these in one of the compartments at the back of the room," he said stepping forward and handing them to Sam.

Sam took the crystals and looked across at the bank of lockers. "I thought they were locked?"

"They were," Daniel confirmed, "but we think when you disconnected the second coupler, the computer may have activated some safety measure and opened them all up."

"Why?" Jack turned and watched Teal'c snooping through the lockers.

"Could be for any number of reasons, sir, but most likely so the engineers in charge of this place had easy access to back-up supplies. Were there anymore?" she asked Teesan, who shook his head in silent reply.

"I did not have time to do a thorough inventory of the compartments."

Jack tossed a thumb over his shoulder. "I'm going to help Teal'c back there. You, Daniel, and our two friends here see what else you can find out about this place. Emphasis on getting our butts out of here if at all possible." Jack started to walk away, but turned back. "You sure the 'gate is a no-go, Carter?"

"I can take a look at it, but..."

"Okay," Jack sighed, "was worth a shot. Call if you find a way to get us out of this mess, and preferably without destroying the planet."

"You're never going to let me forget that, are you, sir?"

"Nope," he tossed casually over his shoulder. "Safe to say I've got years of entertainment value left there."

"Ya blow up one lousy solar system…"

"Sam?"

"Yeah?" Sam turned back to the viewscreen. "Found anything?"

"Ah, no. Jack's mention of the naquadah generator had me wondering why it was damaged by the feedback and yet you'd disconnected the city from the main supply."

"It was instantaneous. The feedback hit at the very moment I pulled the coupler."

"And that doesn't strike you as being a little odd?"

"Like there should have been at least some small measure of time from the point of disconnection to the moment the conduit in the tether realized it couldn't handle the extra power?"

"Yeah."

"You're right, there should have been. I'm sorry, I can't explain it."

"Well," Daniel huffed, "I guess it hardly matters when the damage is done. So, what now?"

Sam rounded the console once again and stood in front of the viewscreen, the cross-section of the tether almost filling the entire monitor. "Mikah," she said, urging the engineer forward with a small wave. "Have your people ever had to leave the city to conduct maintenance on the outside of any of the living units?"

"Go out into the ocean?" he asked, brow collapsing into a scowl as though the very notion was totally foreign.

"Yes. Fix a panel, that type of thing."

"No, never. Adding the additional living units to the city was a relatively simple procedure that didn't require us to leave _Crellum Mare_. We used a repelling shield that pushed back the water and allowed us to work beyond the existing city limits."

"Really?" Sam's natural curiosity won over quickly. "You weren't worried about the shield collapsing while you had people out there? Seems a little dangerous."

"We were not. The units were assembled in sections and easily fused together and connected to the city. Once complete, each unit took barely a few hours to install and were quickly connected to the power supply."

"Ah… wow! I'd love to go over your engineering specs some time, if your leaders aren't adverse to letting outsiders take a look at your technology?"

Mikah smiled widely. "I am sure First Leader Zolan would welcome your interest."

"Sam?"

Sam looked over at Daniel, who tipped his head at the viewscreen. "Bigger problems," he muttered, trying to draw her attention back to the here and now.

"Oh, right… sorry. Okay, so your people may not have had conventional access to the ocean, but the Ancient's had to have had. I mean, it's only logical that they had some way of fixing the sub-juncture in the tether, as well as the equipment in the core."

"Rings?" Daniel suggested with a half shrug. "Just because we haven't found a platform, doesn't mean there isn't one.

"Maybe. But rings for internal transportation? Doesn't seem likely."

"Okay, then what about the transporter system they have on Atlantis? They function internally, if what McKay said in his report was right."

"Oh, it'd be right. Like it or not, Rodney McKay is rarely ever wrong. Just… don't go telling him that. His ego doesn't need any more stroking than he already gives it."

"No."

"I think it's safe to assume if this outpost had a transporter system, we'd have found it by now. The pictures of the system used in Atlantis left us with little doubt as to what we were looking at. No, has to be something else."

"Wait a moment." Daniel's fingers flew across the tiny keyboard, once again rearranging the image on the screen. "I saw an earlier mention of a maintenance drone." He played about with the screen again, this time reaching over and depressing one of the squares on the surface of the console. Lowering it a fraction, pausing, and then lowering it some more. "There!" he said, pointing to a new image on the screen.

Sam tipped her head to one side and squinted at the screen, a smile spreading across her face. "That's a…"

"I think it's an older version to the one we used, but there's no doubting the design."

"What did Major Sheppard call these in his report?"

"Puddle jumpers."

"Excuse me," Teesan interrupted by waving a hand at the image of the screen. "What is this… device?"

"It's a ship," replied Daniel with a small smile.

"We've seen one of these before, Teesan. In fact, one of our expeditions recently discovered several of these vessels, although the information they've been able to send to us has been limited."

"And you can use this to travel outside this outpost?"

Sam liked to think they could. "Assuming there's one here and it's still flight-worthy, then yeah, it's a possibility."

"I think I've found it," Daniel announced, only to have his words die in the air by the sound of a distant explosion, followed scant seconds later by a shock wave that rattled the outpost.

"Down!" yelled Sam, grabbing Teesan and pulling him to the ground with her. Daniel crouched low, gripping the sides of the console for support while he tried to search out Jack and Teal'c at the very far end of the room.

The event was over almost as quickly as it had begun. Teesan, who had his hands over his head and was curled up on the floor, risked a furtive look at the ceiling before scrambling to sit up, smiling nervously at Daniel. Next to him, Sam rose warily to her feet and reached for the laptop now perched precariously on the edge of the console, cursing sourly under her breath as she tried to interpret the information on the tiny screen.

"Carter!" Jack called behind her and within moments she could hear him and Teal'c closing in on their position.

"I'm working on it, sir!" There was no point physically acknowledging him when she intrinsically knew exactly what he wanted. "Daniel, I need the blueprint of the outpost, the one that shows the Yahut city."

While he bought up the image, Sam took stock of Teesan and Mikah, noting fear and uncertainty in their eyes. She gave them both a smile intended to be reassuring, but which she instantly knew had come off as sympathetic.

"Explosive decompression," Daniel said through a sigh, tapping the words on the screen that pulsed a warning red at them.

The blueprint cross section of the city that had until recently been represented in graphical form by steady lines of blue and white, now had sections of red dotted all over it. Some were a solid red, others flashing along with corresponding streams of data. Not even close to being able to adequately translate Ancient, Sam had none the less managed to remember some of the more common words they'd encountered since their arrival and was able to glean a basic understanding of what was happening. "One of the outer compartments has ruptured. Damn it!"

"What's happening, kids?" Jack slid in next to her and winced at the flashing screen. "Why does anything in red automatically mean something bad has happened or is about to happen? Why not a nice dark spruce? Or perhaps something in gray?"

"The color won't matter a whole lot, sir. We're losing compartments in the city. I should have realized this might happen when we lost power. Essentially, with the environmental controls offline due to a lack of power, the thin containment shield protecting the city has been severely compromised and the pressure of the ocean is causing the units to explosively decompress."

"And we can't stop it, right?"

"If the switch over to the naquadah generator had worked, then yes… this wouldn't be happening. As the outer units decompress, the inner units will be subjected to increased external pressure and will eventually suffer the same fate. The only way to stop that would be to re-power the city. Even then, I can't predict whether it'll work. I'm sorry, sir, but we're dealing with too many variables for me to be totally sure of anything at this point."

"What of the outpost?" Teal'c asked. "Would it not be subject to the same pressure?"

"We get back to the original issue there, Teal'c. The power requirements of the outpost were meant to maintain this facility only. When the power went out, the emergency back-ups kicked in to preserve this area and nothing more. The outpost is fine for as long as the reserve power holds out. Sir," she turned back to the general. "Unless we can find power from somewhere to run the city's basic environmental support systems with, we're going to have to sever it physically from the outpost."

"No!" Teesan yelled, his eyes wide in disbelief. "You cannot! This city is all we have!"

"I know that," Sam said sympathetically softening her tone, "but what you have to understand is if the units continue to decompress, and they will, then eventually the first unit connected to the outpost will damage the airlock separating it from the amphitheater when it blows. If that airlock is damaged in any way, that breach will decompress the outpost, destroying it, and us, right along with it."

As if backing Sam's theory up, the outpost shook as another living unit in the city succumbed to the pressure of the ocean. A little louder, and to Sam's trained ear, a little closer, the unintentional demonstration was enough for Teesan to nod encouragingly at her, while scrambling to find purchase on the Ancient console. He understood, and that was all she needed to know.

"Okay," Jack drawled as he climbed to his feet. "I really don't want to keep going through this every few minutes."

"Remember all those variables I mentioned, sir?"

"Yep."

"I think I can get the 'gate working again by doing a total reset of the system, but it depends on us being able to repair the damaged components at the sub-junction station midway down the tether. If we can't do that, then there is nowhere for the power to go and we risk another more deadly feedback event. I'm fairly sure that will totally destroy any hopes we have of fixing the 'gate and getting out of here."

"So we need to get to the tether somehow? Snorkel, flippers? Hold my breath for a really long time?"

"How about a puddle jumper?" Daniel suggested as he brought the picture of the jumper back up on the screen. "Beats holding your breath, Jack."

"Not to mention me not packing my Speedos." Jack moved closer to the screen and then looked back over his shoulder at Daniel. "Older model?"

"Well… yeah. How could you tell?"

"The one we've got is slightly more circular, and this one has some dorsal modifications."

"Greater maneuverability in water?"

"That would be my guess. Well," he puffed out his chest, "it looks great up on the screen, but where did the Ancients park this bus?"

"First door on the left," Daniel said flatly, cocking his head at Jack. "Literally. If you walk out, turn left and take the first door, you should find a room with a wading pool in it."

"Ah," Mikah smiled appreciatively. "We use the pool to teach our children basic water survival skills."

Jack frowned comically. "Handy when you live in a city under the sea, I guess."

"Yes, but we have searched that room many times over the years and found nothing."

"Yeah, well, the Ancients aren't known for leaving their toys out for other kids to play with. Teal'c, Mickey, you're with me."

"It's Mikah, sir." Sam smirked at the deliberate twist the general gave to Mikah's name, seeing his age-old habit for what it was: just plain good fun.

TBC


	9. Chapter 9

"Would it have hurt the Ancients to spend a few dollars putting some windows in this place?" The room was bare. Not just totally bare, but impossibly so. If the Yahut did use this room for swimming classes, then Jack kind of figured there'd be a surfboard or some beach towels scattered about the place. Some sign of purpose to the room.

Nadda.

Bupkis.

"Is the view on the ceiling not enough for you, O'Neill?" Teal'c stood a few feet away, hands planted on his hips and staring up at huge fingers of red seaweed swaying back and forth beyond the domed ceiling. Impressive, yes, but one got a crick in their neck if they watched it for too long.

"Should'a brought my fishing tackle," Jack mumbled, craning his head to look up at the dome overhead as a large shadow moved through the seaweed, teasing him by not fully showing itself.

"This will have to be the one that gets away."

Teal'c's humor was mystifying at times, even to the initiated. "Come on." Jack walked past and clapped a hand on Teal'c's shoulder. "No time for ceiling gazing when we've got a ship to find."

Unlike the room that held the Ancient command console, this room was almost semi-circular in shape and a good two times as large. The domed ceiling was a central feature, by virtue of the impressive vista it presented regardless of where you stood. The walls were brushed metal and, whether by design or not, threw off a rainbow of blue tones to match the color of the ceiling. There were no storage lockers in this room, which Jack found a little odd considering it was obviously built to serve as access to the ocean beyond the outpost.

In the center of the room, almost directly below the highest point of the dome, was a circular pool. Jack peered over the edge and squinted, puzzled by the blue light streaming out from the depths of the water.

"Teal'c," he said, calling his teammate over with a flick of his head. "What do you make of this?"

"It is a pool of water, O'Neill."

Jack quirked an eyebrow at him. "Well, yeah… but the light."

"Most likely artificial."

"It is," Mikah confirmed as he joined them at the pool. "It is possible to dive down quite a distance before you have to return to the surface. There are lights scattered along the way, spaced at regular intervals."

"There's no bottom?"

"Not that we have discovered."

Jack frowned. "And you say you teach your kids to swim in this thing?" He peered back over the side into the murky water. "A little dangerous, don't you think?"

"We do not allow our children to swim unsupervised, General. You were perhaps expecting something else?"

"I… no. Well … you're not worried that something might just pop out?" He waved at the pool and then looked back up at the ceiling. "A **big** something?"

"O'Neill, are you familiar with the film, Abyss?"

Jack turned to Teal'c and regarded him wryly. "Bit of a James Cameron aficionado, are we?"

"I am not. But I found the aliens in the story bear a remarkable resemblance to a race of semi non-corporeal beings Apophis subjugated many decades ago."

"And this has what to do with sea monsters?"

"You are perhaps expecting a Russian water tentacle to rise from the depths?"

"Sentient water?" Jack blinked. "And Ferretti swears you don't have a sense of humor."

Nodding imperceptibly, Teal'c cocked one eyebrow at Jack and turned away, mumbling softly, "Colonel Ferretti would be mistaken."

Jack looked to Mikah and then back down to the surface of the pool. "You people never wondered what this pool was used for in the first place?"

"We speculated over the years, but as there was no one to ask..."

"So... that'd be a no."

Bare walls and an empty pool, and not a thread of a worn towel in sight. The room was Spartan… and boring. Even the odd panel of chicken scratchings would have at least been something to break up the sterility of the place, but there was literally nothing.

Jack slapped his thigh and rubbed the contact point. "I think Daniel needs to get his eyes checked again."

"Your attempt to convey the idea that Daniel Jackson has misread the information provided by the Ancients is incorrect, O'Neill." Teal'c was standing about a quarter of the way around the semi-circular room, his face pressed close to the wall, one hand moving closely over its surface. To his left, and a few feet further along, Mikah was now doing almost the same thing, only with both hands on the wall.

"Found something?" Jack asked as crossed the room, avoiding the pool, and joined them. "Anything?"

"Daniel Jackson has proven on more than one occasion that something of importance can indeed be hidden in plain sight, if one takes the time to look."

"And you couldn't have just said 'Yes, O'Neill, I have found something,'?"

"The wall here is imperfect."

"See, now _that's_ something!"

"Here, too," said Mikah, one hand raised far above his head, palm flat to the wall. "An opening perhaps?"

"Indeed."

Jack stood back and took in the whole wall. "I got nothing. If there's a door here then where's the knob, or the handle… even a latch?"

"_Jack, come in."_

"Yo!" Jack started and fumbled for his radio. "A little warning next time!"

"_You want me to warn you _before_ I call you on the radio?"_ Daniel sounded a little confused. _"You realize how ridiculous that sounds?"_

"Not the point. What have you found?"

"_We think we've discovered a code that should open the doors to the puddle jumper, assuming it's still in its docking cradle."_

"And if it isn't?"

There was a beat of silence, and Jack could only imagine the quick back and forth conversation taking place between Daniel and Carter over actions and consequences. _"Well, I don't know, but it's safe to assume the outpost wouldn't allow the bay doors to be opened if there was nothing but ocean on the other side."_

"So you don't know?"

"_Didn't I just say that?"_

"**Daniel!**"

"_Jack, the Ancients wouldn't build an external docking port without having some kind of shield or barrier to prevent flooding. Opening the door isn't going to let the ocean in on top of you."_

"So you say," Jack mumbled under his breath, eyeing Teal'c and Mikah in turn. "Teal'c thinks he's found an opening that could possibly be what we're looking for. Me? I can't see a damn thing."

"_Stand back and I'll enter in the code. See what happens."_

Jack cocked his head towards the back of the room, indicating that they should all move back. As soon as he thought they were a safe enough distance away, he thumbed his radio. "Go ahead."

Smoothly and soundlessly the wall seemed to split apart, much like it had done earlier in the amphitheater, only this time it revealed the familiar rear hatch of an Ancient ship.

"Bingo!" Jack said, punching Teal'c lightly on the shoulder as he rushed forward. "I never doubted Daniel for a minute, buddy."

"More likely it was several minutes," Teal'c murmured around a very small smile.

Jack thumbed his radio as soon as he drew up short of the rear hatch "Daniel, Carter… we've found the ship."

"_Great! Sam says your first priority should be to find out if it's even operational."_

"Gee, wish I'd thought of that," Jack mumbled to no one in particular before squeezing his radio. "Just about to find out. Everything okay there?"

"_I've found a few more crystals and something that resembles a monkey wrench in one of the lockers."_

"Excellent. It'll make a great souvenir for Siler."

~oOo~

"I'd need to test it out first to be sure." Sam was on her knees next to the naquadah generator, her diagnostic tool tethered to a wire jutting out from a point below where the LED display normally sat. The display itself was still hanging from the device, its screen dark. "The readings I'm getting show a stable core, which doesn't mean a whole lot if we can't monitor the output in case the self-diagnostic isn't registering some other type of malfunction. The only thing I can monitor is the result from turning it on."

"Boom?" Daniel sat cross-legged on the other side of the generator, positioned at an angle where he could monitor the information on the outpost viewscreen and watch Sam at the same time. "So you're saying even if the generator looks like it should work, we still run the risk of blowing ourselves to smithereens because of something we can't predict?"

"On anything but the lowest setting, yeah… pretty much." She waved absently at the generator, while transfixed on the readout from her instrument. "This thing only gives me readings from a set number of parameters I've fed into it."

"And one of them being for the lowest setting?"

"I use it as a baseline reading."

"Which means, what?" Teesan was sitting against the Ancient console, his journal in his lap and a stylus poised above the page as though he was taking notes. Daniel had quite forgotten the man was still with them, his input into their conversation having died off the moment Sam's explanations started getting technical.

Daniel pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes tight. "Don't ask the question, don't expect an answer," he answered, hoping Teesan would understand the reference.

"Ah," Teesan replied, turning back to his journal. "That would be in your simplistic terms, yes?"

Daniel tossed Teesan and unassuming sideways glance, getting the impression that the Yahutian knew a lot more about what was happening then what he let on. Breaking off the stare, he turned back to Sam. "Okay, let's assume for a moment that you can coax some decent power out of this thing. Will it be enough to use the 'gate? Get us out of here?"

"It might be, but I wouldn't like to try."

"Why?"

Sam sat back on her bottom and scrubbed a hand through her hair, looking across at Daniel and smiling sadly. "Because this 'gate requires more power to activate than a normal 'gate does, which I'm fairly certain has to do with the ring generator. In turn, if we use the naquadah generator to activate the 'gate and the dynamo fires up, then we'll be looking at another overload. We'll have gone from not enough power to too much all in the space of a few seconds."

Daniel stared hard at her, his face twisted in a scowl, one brow raised in confusion. "Won't the power from the ring generator feed straight down to the tether?"

"No, not when there's something at the sub-juncture stopping the power from getting through to the core."

"Boom?"

"Big boom."

"Planning on blowing something up, Carter?" Daniel and Sam both looked up in unison as Jack strode in the room, still carrying the P90 clipped to his vest.

"Not quite," Daniel said rising to his feet. "Sam thinks she may have fixed the naquadah generator."

"She does? Carter?"

Sam tipped her head from side to side, conveying a sense of not being entirely sure of what she'd done. "As I told Daniel, sir, I've managed to rewire and reroute some of the generator's damaged systems." She picked up her still-connected diagnostic tool and read over the numbers on the screen again. "And the readings I'm getting so far are stable."

"Great!"

"But…"

"Not great?"

"More like I can't tell for certain if I've repaired all the damage without a fully shielded lab to test it in. There is a remote chance I may have missed something."

"Carter, I'll take one of your remote chances any day of the week." Jack moved to stand above the generator, looking down on the obvious patch job Carter had completed. "So, what now? Dial out and revel in the fact that we survived another close shave?"

"Sorry, sir, but we can't risk using the generator to dial the 'gate."

"Boom!" Daniel said mimicking an explosion with his hands.

Jack's brief moment of relief died when Daniel rested his hands on his hips and looked at him over the rim of his glasses, hoping his theatrical display had been sufficient enough. Jack rolled his eyes in reply. "It's always doom and gloom with you."

"What?" Daniel mocked in a hurt tone. "Getting ourselves blown up several times in one day isn't enough excitement for you, Jack?"

Jack chose to ignore him. "If we can't dial up the 'gate and save our collective asses, then what good is the generator?"

Carter leaned forward and flicked a switch on the side of the generator, a look of relief on her face when it hummed to life. "Low power only, but it should be enough to stop most of what's left of the city from decompressing."

Jack slid his gaze from Carter to Daniel. "I thought you said it would explode if we turned it on?"

"No, I said—" Daniel started, only to be cut off by Sam.

"There's no way to test the device at full power, sir. And, to be honest, I really wouldn't want to. As Daniel so visually put it, we'd run the very real risk of it exploding, not only if we tried full power, but if we connected the generator to the 'gate at even low power."

Jack let his P90 slide from his hands to swing freely from its clip, pinching his brow and frowning into the palm of his hand as he slid down his face. "The abridged version, please?" he pleaded.

Sam turned the generator off and rose to her feet. "Simply put, sir: We can use the naquadah generator to try and support the city and stop what's left of it from decompressing, but we can't use it to activate the 'gate. To try would be suicide."

"Thank you, Carter."

"Ah, where are Teal'c and Mikah?" Daniel looked over his shoulder towards the door.

"With the ship. It's pretty much like you said, Carter. This jumper is a much older version of the one we found and doesn't require the ATA gene to operate."

"Really? I'd love to have the time to do a comparative study of both ships, just to see how the Ancients modified the engine to allow neural commands from the pilot, and whether it only responds to the pilot or any other gene carrier on board. Makes me wonder if there's some type of override whereby the ship will only react to one set of distinct commands—"

The floor shook beneath their feet, barely perceptible at first, but growing steadily in momentum.

"Crap!" Jack spat, tottering on unsteady legs as the concussive blast of another compartment decompressing swept through the outpost. Like Daniel, Carter, and Teesan, he suddenly found himself flat on his belly, his P90 digging painfully into his ribs and stomach. Slowly the shaking petered away, and Jack rolled onto his side and over onto his back, gazing up at the ceiling.

"Everyone okay?" he said looking over at the others, watching as they slowly rose to their feet. He reached for his radio and thumbed the mic. "Teal'c, come in?"

"_We are fine, O'Neill,"_ Teal'c replied a little unsteadily. _"The jumper sustained no damage and the docking clamps are stable."_

"Good to hear. Leave that for now and get yourself and Mickey back here ASAP."

~oOo~

Jack looked over the recently patched up naquadah generator and tried to admire the job Carter had done on the device. Cosmetically pleasing, nope, but she had at least got the thing to work, which, considering the resources at her disposal, was a hell of a lot more than Jack had actually expected. Teal'c was cradling the generator, the look on his face betraying just the barest hint of fear and trepidation at their decidedly B-grade plan to go back into the unstable city and attempt to breathe some life back into it.

There was little choice if they wanted to save what was left of the city, although Jack had more questions than Carter had answers for when it came to actually pulling this little stunt off. The idea was a simple one: Get in, hook up the generator to the mains, and get out of there as fast as possible. The 'fast' bit was added when Carter informed them there was no functioning life support in the city. They weren't exactly wandering into a vacuum—each individual living unit had been shut down and sealed after the evacuation of the Yahut—but the air was mighty thin.

When Jack factored in the threat of another compartment succumbing to explosive decompression while he and Teal'c were in there, well… the idea of a quick exit carried a lot of weight.

Jack pulled out his flashlight and, turning it on, held it between his teeth so his hands were free. The outpost was modestly lit by emergency power, but he knew the moment they opened the final door to the city that he and Teal'c would have nothing but their flashlights to guide them.

"You ready for this?" he asked looking across at Teal'c.

"An unreasonable question when we have no choice but to proceed," Teal'c replied, deadpan, not even turning to meet Jack's gaze.

"Ah, true, but I feel good asking the question."

"Even though the asking serves no purpose in allaying any fears I may have?"

Teal'c's modest confession caught Jack by surprise. "You have fears… about this?" He swept his gaze down to the naquadah generator Teal'c carried. "Really?"

"You do not?"

"Well, yeah… but… really? You do?"

"One does not know true courage if he has no fear."

"Oh, I get it, Grasshopper. Been taking Oma-ism lessons from Daniel-san, have we?"

Teal'c cocked his head to the side and raised one eyebrow at Jack. "If you are referring to the time Daniel Jackson and I spend in mediative contemplation, O'Neill, then I assure you Oma De Sala plays no part in our travels."

"Your travels? Not going for that whole spiritual enlightenment thing are you? 'Cause it worked so well for Daniel in the past."

"_Jack. Come in."_

"Speak of the devil." Jack tugged at his radio. "Here, Master."

"_Say again?"_

"We're at the airlock, Daniel."

"_Oh, great. Sam can activate the code to unlock the outpost door on this side, but you'll have to activate the other two doors manually. Same as you did last time."_

"Wait! What about on the return trip?"

"_Quicker if we do it here. The outpost computer registers when the city doors are being opened, but it can only control the doors directly linked to its systems. Sam is overriding the automatic controls now. As soon as the outpost door opens, you'll be fine to manually open the rest."_

"And you couldn't do that last time?"

"_I didn't know there was an override code."_

"Nothing about any of this is straightforward, is it?"

"_Nope. Which pretty much accounts for, oh, about a hundred percent of our job description. You ready to go?"_

"I am, but apparently Teal'c has some fears that need allaying." Jack deliberately turned away from Teal'c so he couldn't see the expression on his face.

"_Okay,"_ Daniel replied slowly, _"I'll take that as a yes."_

To be continued...


	10. Chapter 10

The outpost door closed with an audible snick and Jack had just enough time to look at it over his shoulder before doubling over, almost retching as he tried to suck in fresh air to his abused lungs. Beside him, Teal'c was in a similar position, one hand on a hip, the other clamped around the base of his throat.

"You okay?" Jack rasped, suddenly concerned at the gravely sound of his voice. Teal'c simply nodded and started to stagger forward away from the airlock and in the direction of the distant control room.

"_Jack! Teal'c!"_ The urgency in Daniel's voice demanded Jack answer, but he couldn't quite find the energy to reach his radio. Somewhere in the space of only a few minutes, he and Teal'c had managed to duck through the airlock system separating the Ancient outpost from the Yahut city, connect the barely functioning naquadah generator to the city's crippled power conduits, and get it online. Jack had silently been hoping for a fanfare of revelation or a choir of appreciative gospel singers to break into song the moment the city woke up, but nothing happened. No lights, no suddenly thrumming of power beneath their feet, nothing.

And they didn't have time to wait around for their fanfare.

They'd cut it close. Too close. There was air in the Yahut city, but it was stale and thin, barely enough to sustain one of them for a few minutes, let alone two of them. Jack gave little thanks to the fact that the central city conduit was only a stone's throw from the airlock, because as soon as the last door had closed and they were forced to breathe, the distance seemed unfathomable.

When it had become obvious the lack of air was affecting Jack and Teal'c's judgement, Sam had taken Daniel's radio and guided them through the whole procedure for setting up the generator and returning to the airlock.

Jack straightened up as best he could and fumbled for his radio. "Here," he croaked, uncaring if Daniel couldn't make sense of his words.

"_Jack?"_

"What!"

"_You and Teal'c need to get back here now. Something's happening to the outpost."_

"Again?"

"_Look, I don't have time to explain, but you need to move!"_

The emergency lighting dimmed as though it had taken its cue from Daniel's urgent plea to get his butt moving, and Jack suddenly found one of Teal'c's hands clamped down hard on his shoulder, pulling him forward towards the control room. His lungs felt torn and bleeding from the effort of simply trying to suck in the precious air they'd been denied, but the sight of one of the outpost room doors closing as they passed by pushed that pain aside.

"Teal'c!" Jack called out, jutting his chin at the door.

"I see it, O'Neill. We must hurry."

What Daniel didn't have time to explain had suddenly become incredibly clear: The outpost was sealing itself up, shutting down, and Jack had no idea why.

Teal'c and Jack flew through the control room doors as they snapped shut, landing heavily in a tangle of arms and legs.

"It's all in the timing," Jack heaved, flipping onto his back and throwing one arm across his eyes. "And if you dare say we cut that fine, Daniel, I swear I'm going to punch you."

"Not a word," Daniel said, kneeling down between them both. "But I'll give you a nine for your timing and a seven for artistic interpretation."

Jack lifted his arm a fraction and glared up at Daniel. "What? Only a seven?"

"Your execution of the flying and rolling maneuver needs work."

"Oy…" Jack let his arm slide to the floor and pulled himself up on to his elbows. "Anyone care to explain why doors kept closing behind us? Carter?"

Sam rapped both fists on the top of the Ancient console in frustration and dropped her chin to her chest. "I have no idea," she whispered just loud enough to be heard. "The system triggered a shutdown of the…" Sam's attention was taken by something on her laptop, and she peered hard at the screen. "Daniel, can you come here?"

Daniel was by her side in a few steps, and she moved aside to give him access to the computer.

"Ah," he said nervously, his gaze flicking between the laptop and the Ancient viewscreen, the same image now appearing on both. "This is not good."

"Talk to me, Daniel," Sam asked, placing a hand on his forearm.

"We've lost life support."

"What? How?"

Mikah was immediately by Sam's side. "I thought life support was a critical system?" he asked, squinting at the screen, but clearly not comprehending what he was seeing.

"It is," Sam replied and watched as Daniel tried to input commands into the console, hissing through clenched teeth when nothing he tried worked.

"Best I can tell, the outpost is shutting down non-critical systems in order to keep the more vital systems operational. Which makes no sense at all."

"Power conservation," Sam declared, pushing away from the console and slapping her right hand on her brow in frustration. "Ancient computers are intuitive and this one is probably working on the theory that the outpost has been completely evacuated. With no life to sustain, there's no need for life support."

"Time, Carter. How long do we have?"

Sam stepped up to the laptop and inputted an inquiry, teeth biting down on her bottom lip as she waited for an answer. "Not good," she mumbled, "We're on circulating air only, so about… 4 hours, maybe 5 if we limit our activity to only essential tasks."

"Essential tasks," Teal'c muttered and then cocked his head towards the door. "What of the jumper? Does it not have its own independent air supply?"

"You saw the inside of that thing, Teal'c. Barely enough room to swing a cat."

Teal'c raised one brow questioningly.

"Metaphorically," Jack quickly added. "It means we don't have a lot of room to spare. Either they didn't design this ship to double a lifeboat or..."

"Or?"

"The Ancients of the period were all midgets."

"The jumper!" Daniel pushed the laptop aside and studied the console, hands wavering over the top of the square blocks while he decided which one to push. Slowly, much more slowly than Jack liked, he selected a block and adjusted its level incrementally.

"Daniel… what are you doing?" Jack asked, instantly on his feet and suddenly very alert.

Daniel shot him a fleeting look, dark and unquestioning. Jack nodded tightly and left Daniel to figuring out the problem.

"This one." Daniel nodded at Sam and pointed to a block on the top right of the console, closest to her position. "Take it down one quarter, until the value on the screen reaches 6.18."

"What will that do?" Sam held her hand above the block and looked at the laptop screen. A number value flashed at her, bringing back memories of having a similar conversation with Ba'al at Dakara.

"The Ancients programmed in a series of command codes designed to override pre-determined programming in the event of a catastrophic failure. Remember? We talked about it earlier!"

"To overwrite any intuitive programming the computer initiates."

"Right! 6.18 is the frequency that holds the command code override to the automated doors. If we can't get them open, then we can't get to the jumper!"

"How do you know this?" she shot back, flexing her fingers above the block, hesitation coloring her voice.

"Sam!" Daniel reached over and knocked her hand away, pushing down on the block steadily until the readout on the laptop lowered to 6.18. The doors slid open behind him. "I don't know how long we can keep the doors open before the computer catches on to what we've done."

"Sir, you have to go!" Sam picked up the crystals they'd recovered and held them out to Jack. "You need to get to the sub-juncture at the tether and replace the crystals."

"Whoa, wait up. What about you and Daniel?"

"No choice, Jack. There's no way to tell if there's a command console at the tether. We need to stay and monitor your progress from here so we can manually reset the Stargate and get the ring generator operational."

"And regulate the amount of power passing through the sub-juncture once you've replaced the crystals," Sam added. "There's also a chance that the crystal housing itself or some other system at the juncture could be responsible for the feedback."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning Daniel and I will have to talk you through the repairs."

The plan clearly wasn't sitting well with Jack, and he shot them both a pained look as he grabbed the crystals. He nodded at Teesan and Mikah and thrust his head towards the door, a clear sign he was taking the two men with him. "So, replacing the crystals might not fix the problem? Is that what you're trying to tell me, Carter?"

She shrugged, a sour expression on her face. "Crystal degradation is the most likely problem, and replacing them should fix it completely, but we're talking about automated systems almost as old as Dakara. There could be other unseen issues. It's impossible to be accurate, sir."

"Jeez!" Jack swore through a suffering groan. "Is there anything we're certain about here? Anything at all?"

"I'm reasonably certain if you can get to the tether then the amount of viable oxygen left in the outpost should be enough for Sam and I to survive on while you're gone."

Jack frowned at the tinge of cockiness in Daniel's tone, and countered back, "Which assumes there's an air supply at the sub-juncture, right?"

"You'll know once you dock at the tether, sir," Sam interjected quickly. "The Ancients obviously used the jumper for deep water maintenance on both the outpost and its other mechanical systems, so it's safe to assume it has the capability to relay environmental conditions at its destination."

Jack waved a hand at the Ancient viewscreen. "And you can't tell all that from here?"

"No, sir." Sam turned to face the screen. "In fact, we haven't been able to glean much information about the sub-juncture at all, save knowing that it actually exists."

"A bit odd, isn't it?"

"I think so, yes, but it could be something as simple as the outpost computer not being able to monitor the equipment there anymore due to some technical malfunction. We haven't been able to access an interior schematic of the core, either."

Daniel pushed his glasses back on his head and rubbed at his eyes. "Actually," he mumbled from under his hands, "it's a miracle the Yahut managed to survive this long, considering the condition of the outpost. This place really should have shut down decades ago."

"Yeah, well… funny how we turn up and it all goes to hell in a hand basket," Jack grouched. "Famous SG-1 timing?"

"Maybe," Daniel conceded wryly, "but I think Zolan will be thanking us for getting his people out of here before the situation got to the point where they couldn't leave."

Jack took a long, lingering look at the viewscreen and tossed a thumb over his shoulder to where Teal'c and the two Yahutians stood waiting for him. "Speaking of leaving… I guess we should…"

"Yeah," Daniel smiled thinly. "Good luck."

"You, too."

~oOo~

Less of a ship and more of a bath tub, Jack thought as he struggled with the controls of the Ancient submersible. The craft felt heavy and sluggish under his touch as he guided it away from the outpost, swinging on a large right-turning arc away from the city to come back on the tether. To his right, Teal'c sat in the co-pilot's position, his posture stiff as he surveyed the instrument panel and then lifted his gaze to the forward window.

"Got it figured out yet?" Jack asked, not really wanting conversation when his attention was so acutely fixed on keeping the ship from flipping over, but slightly nervous at Teal'c's long silence.

"This does not feel right, O'Neill." Teal'c rested his hands on the console, fingers splayed.

"Yeah. I'm worried about leaving Carter and Daniel, too."

"It is not that which concerns me. Colonel Carter and Daniel Jackson are more than capable of guiding our descent and looking after their own well-being."

"Oh. Well, yeah. So?"

"I find the variables of this mission to be much higher than we have encountered in the past. Could it be that we were wrong to attempt to save this world?"

"Call it hindsight, Teal'c." The tether loomed large in the viewscreen and Jack had to manually slow the ship's approach by pulling back on the controls. His first interaction with the jumper when they'd gained access through the rear hatch had instantly told him what they'd all suspected: This model of jumper, unlike its younger sister, didn't employ a neural bond with an ATA carrier to operate. For some reason that should have thrilled him, he liked the tactile feel of maneuvering a vessel and knowing that it only went where he directed it, but this was different. Whether it was knowing they were underwater, or from the imposing pressure bearing down on them, but Jack couldn't quite get the little ship to do exactly what he wanted.

The tether glided by on their right side, long strands of red and purple seaweed wrapped around its girth and swaying madly in the current produced by their passing. Jack pointed the craft downwards and, after a few seconds of trial and error, managed to activate the forward floodlights, illuminating the ocean beyond. Behind him, Teesan and Mikah were sitting on the edge of their seats in what passed for a passenger section, staring open-mouthed at the incredible vista outside the jumper. In truth, they were perched on benches that were probably designed more for storage than anything else. Jack hated being right, but it was fairly self-evident that the little ship had only been designed to carry a very minimal crew and for only a short period of time. Compared to the jumper they'd recently liberated from Harry Maybourne's world, and the images of the ones the Atlantis team had discovered, this one was barely half the size.

Jack looked at the reflection of the rear of the ship on the viewscreen and frowned. He doubted this ship had the life support to carry four people, let alone six, should this suddenly become their lifeboat.

"Ahead at your eleven o'clock, O'Neill." Teal'c pointed to a spot just to the upper left of Jack's left shoulder. He'd been daydreaming and wasn't watching their decent vector on the viewscreen and had almost missed the boxy protrusion clinging to the tether. This time, Jack was forced to break off their decent and swing the craft to the left to avoid a dense patch of purple seaweed. The growth was thicker than what they'd seen before and almost completely obscured the sub-juncture building. He swung the ship around in a tight circle, gliding it from side to side as he navigated a path through the seaweed, and stirring up nest after nest of small fish-like creatures that were clinging to the gnarled tendrils.

"There," Teesan called out from behind Jack's shoulder, his hand just waving past his nose and towards the sub-juncture. "There is a circle on the side. Could that be some sort of docking port?"

"I see it," Jack replied, pulling the nose up and forcing the ship into a tight one hundred and eighty degree turn to present it hatch first to the dock. Without prompt, the image on the viewscreen changed to a close-up view of the airlock and showed Jack his approach angle.

"Huh!" Jack said using finger pad controls on the steering arm to kill the engines and activate the ships small maneuvering thrusters. "How did it know I wanted to see where I was going if there's no neural interface?"

"Perhaps there is a proximity device on both the ship and the station that detects the other's location and activates a guidance system for the pilot," Teal'c suggested.

"Like the back-up camera on my truck?"

Teal'c gave Jack a sideways glace, one eyebrow cocked high on his forehead. "A slightly more sophisticated version."

Jack stared at him deadpan for a moment before turning his attention back to the viewscreen and the airlock they were about to engage. "Five feet," he announced firing the port side thruster to compensate for a slight degree of drift. Out the window, he caught a tight swirl of water and air bubbles as the thruster helped guide the ship into position.

"Two feet."

Metal on metal, the noise reverberating through the cabin for a few seconds, and the airlock snapped onto the back of the jumper, a blue light on the right side of the hatch signalling a tight seal. Jack tapped the locking mechanism on his safety harness and slid out of his seat, announcing in his best airline hostess voice, "Ladies and Gentlemen, Air O'Neill thanks you for your patronage and wishes you a safe onward voyage."

"Where are we going?" Mikah asked. "Is not the sub-juncture our intended destination?"

"Ah, yeah…"

"I do not believe the Yahut recognize your particular form of humor, O'Neill."

Jack looked from Mikah to Teesan, at their confused but expectant looks, and then across to Teal'c. "Ya think?"

To Be Continued...


	11. Chapter 11

Sam kept a close watch on the small dot that represented the Ancient submersible as it descended down the tether in an awkward spiral, clumsily drifting outwards and then correcting course again. From what little the representation afforded her, Sam could only guess that either the general was having trouble maneuvering the craft or it was being jostled by strong undersea currents.

"Daniel?" she called over her shoulder to the back of the room where Daniel had picked up from where Jack and Teal'c left off and was rifling through the rest of the lockers.

"Yep!" He'd fixed his flashlight to his vest at a spot below his radio, and the beam, though not totally necessary as they still had minimal lighting, partially obscured his face when he turned towards her. "Any news?" he called back.

"They're coming up on the sub-juncture now, but we'll lose the ability to track them once they dock."

"Still can't find the schematic?"

Sam shrugged, even though she knew he probably couldn't see her clearly, and turned back to the monitor. "It makes no sense when we've been able to access display diagrams of both the outpost and the city, even though the city isn't an original structure."

She heard one of the lockers close and then the sounds of Daniel's footfalls as he crossed the distance between them. "Perhaps it's some type of security feature the Ancients initialized when they left, to prevent just anyone accessing the sub-juncture and core blue prints."

"Guarding their technology?" Sam didn't quite agree. "Why go all that effort if you expect someone to reinitialize this place after centuries of being in standby mode?"

Daniel drew up beside her, slightly bent at the waist and breathing hard. "The air's getting thinner."

"I noticed. I thought about sealing off the rest of the complex, but I doubt it'll do us any good. Did you find anything?"

"Nothing worth mentioning. Most of what was in there has degraded to the point of being unrecognizable."

"_Carter, Daniel. Come in."_

Daniel reached for his radio and swallowed hard. "Go ahead."

"_We've reached the sub-junction. The Ancients sure liked to build things big."_

"How big?"

"_Won't know for sure until we get inside, but it looks a fair size from out here. We did just discover something… the airlock we docked at isn't the only one. I'd say it's a fair bet they had more than one ship."_

Sam pulled the laptop closer and started flipping through the various diagrams of the outpost they had up on screen until she got to the image of the room with the diving pool. "I can only see the one," she said tapping the screen.

"One of the other rooms maybe?"

"I don't think so, Daniel. I checked right after we discovered the puddle jumper, thinking the Ancients might have had one jumper per outpost room as a safety precaution, but there was nothing."

"And we can't see what's at the core to know if there's any docked down there."

"Not without sending the general or Teal'c to scout it out. Besides which, it doesn't make sense to dock them at the tether when they'd be needed to get back to the outpost."

Daniel instinctively knew it was a bad idea not only to separate the team any further, but to send their only potential lifeboat deeper into the planet.

"Nothing on the schematics, Jack, and the only readings we're getting from the core is via the power conduit network."

"_Crap! Not going there if we really don't have to."_

"What about the possibility that the Ancients took the other ships with them when they abandoned the outpost, leaving one here for when they returned?"

"_Well, whatever they've done with them, they're not going to do us a lick of good. We're reading a viable atmosphere in the sub-juncture, so we're heading on through."_

"Jack, there's a good chance your radio won't be able to work inside the complex."

"_Yeah, I kinda figured that. They must have had some way to communicate between here and the outpost, so I'll look for some type of console thingy… or something. O'Neill, out."_

"Sam, I've been thinking—"

"About the interface data crystal?" Sam put in, not shifting her attention from the viewscreen.

"Am I that predictable?"

"I wouldn't call it predictable, more like passionate. You're far quicker at seeing the potential good in a situation than assessing and accepting the risks."

"Even after all this time?"

Sam dropped her hands to her side and turned to face him, a small smile tugging at her lips. "It's not a bad thing, Daniel," she said earnestly in response to his slightly crest-fallen expression.

"I know the timing sucks—what with the air running out, imminent death and all that—but don't you think we owe it to the Yahut and to ourselves to at least try and retrieve the crystal? What about the holographic interface on Atlantis?"

"You mean use that interface to access the data on this one? I don't know, Daniel. Even if we do eventually establish some direct means of travelling to Atlantis, the technical reports we've received from the expedition already show a distinct difference in the technology there and what the Ancients employed in the Milky Way. There's every chance the two technologies won't fully communicate with each other."

"Well, that doesn't make sense."

"You've read the reports."

"I know, but even I can't see the good in creating two technology branches incapable of communicating with each other."

"Apple and Microsoft?"

"Sam, as someone who can rig a PC to an Ancient computer, surely you can figure out how to make Ancient Tech 2.0 talk to Ancient Tech 3.0?"

"And sometimes I think you all give me a little too much credit."

"So?"

Sam sighed in frustration and looked back up at the viewscreen, at the display that showed far too many failing systems in the outpost compared to those that will still operational. In one corner a countdown to zero hour on their circulating air supply blinked menacingly at her.

"Go."

~oOo~

"Gah!" Jack pinched his nose shut and tried to breathe through his mouth. Opening the airlock had relied on an automated system that appeared to work similarly to what he'd encountered in the past, with pressure equalizing to allow both sides to be exposed to each other. Only with the opening of the airlock came the most disgusting odor Jack swore he'd ever smelled in his life. Teal'c was standing only a few feet away and appeared wholly unaffected by the stench, unlike the two Yahutians who were decidedly green around the gills and edging back towards the open jumper hatch.

"You didn't!" Jack said with whatever modicum of conviction he could muster without emptying his stomach on his boots. He was met with a distinctly cool look over his shoulder from Teal'c, the type of which had previously been used to stare down System Lords, and the same type which told Jack his teammate was probably not the source of his olfactory distress.

"I did not," was all Teal'c offered before presenting his receding back as he moved further down the hallway and into the building proper.

Jack followed at a close distance with Teesan and Mikah bringing up the rear, all three of them still covering their nose and mouth.

After a dozen feet or so, the narrow hallway widened into a circular room with the massive core tether cutting a path from the floor and up through the ceiling. The sub-juncture building enclosed the tether like a sheath, and what little ceiling there was, was totally transparent and afforded them yet another spectacular view of the ocean.

There was a circular railing around the tether. Teal'c was leaning over the edge and looking down towards the floor. "Here," he said as Jack drew alongside. "I believe this to be the source of your discomfort, O'Neill."

Beyond the railing, the floor cut away to reveal a thin ring of water circling the tether, full of a variety of long dead and very decayed fish.

Jack took one look and back-peddled. "I am so off sushi!"

Mikah, who appeared slightly more at ease with the smell, leaned over the railing and frowned at the grisly sight. "This is an endless cycle of death. These creatures have most likely been caught in the building's cooling vents."

"Right," Jack said slowly, "and you know this how?"

"A similar event happened in the diving pool. We awoke one morning to find the pool full of fish. It wasn't until one of our more able-bodied swimmers was able to reach into the depths of the pool that we discovered several large cooling vents had ceased to work. The fish got caught in the vents and, instead of being flushed back into the ocean; they floated to the surface and died." He nodded at the carcasses. "This may have been happening for many years."

"Well, it would explain the smell." Jack dropped his hand from his nose and tested the air cautiously. "I don't suppose anyone fancies a quick dive down to the vents? Anyone?"

"I believe our time would be best spent solving the problem at hand, O'Neill."

Jack turned away from the tether and its pond of dead fish to survey the sub-junction room. Like pretty much everything the Ancients built, the space was massive and yet surprisingly functional. He likened the whole structure to a giant donut with the tether running through the center and supporting several floors of open-plan work space. Overkill, Jack supposed without truly knowing the sub-juncture's true function, but assuming it served no more of a purpose than to support both the outpost and the core.

"Carter, Daniel?" Jack frowned at his radio and waited for a reply, certain from the lack of even a trace of static that a combination of distance, water, and the building were blocking any signals. It was worth a shot, even a long one. "Okay, Teesan you're with me. Teal'c, take Mikey and head down a level. Try your radio when you get there. We might not be able to reach Carter and Daniel, but they should work in here."

"What of the crystals, O'Neill?"

Jack looked across at the bag slung over Teesan's shoulder that held the control crystals. "If Carter says there's a crystal tray here somewhere then that's our first priority. That… and finding some way to communicate with the outpost. See what you can find."

~oOo~

"Leave it, Daniel." Sam's words barely came out as a whisper. Energy quickly fading as fast as the air in the room, she braced herself against the console with her back to the screen, her attention more focused on Daniel's last location. The outpost was in its final death throes. Life support and heating were gone, and very soon the slow incremental dimming of the emergency lights would mark the inevitability of their situation. Only the overhead screen and the Ancient command console still showed any signs of life.

"Daniel!" she called out again and then thumbed her radio, only to discover it was broken. She knew this. The memory of it being damaged in the explosion that crippled the Stargate was suddenly foremost in her mind, though the finer details were somehow fading. Along with all the air in the outpost.

"_Carter, Daniel!"_

"Sir?" she called out, turning to face the console and viewscreen and finding it a little odd that she couldn't see his face up on the monitor. A headache was slowly forming behind her eyes, aching and distracting, chewing up her attention from whatever it was she had been doing.

"_Hello. Hello… is this thing working?"_ Jack's voice was followed by a strange tapping sound and Sam found the vision of him drumming the microphone worthy of a chuckle, even if she couldn't quite understand why.

"I can hear you, sir," she said a little louder, biting back a sudden rush of nausea from the pickaxe chipping away at her head. "You got your radio to work!" Was it even possible?

"_Not quite. Teesan found a working console and we figured out how to activate the sub-junctures comm system. Call it trial and error. News?"_

Sam looked back towards the door. There was nothing to see. "The outpost has shut down more non-essential systems."

"_Like?"_

"Heating and lighting."

"_Neither of which you regard as relevant, Carter? They sound pretty damn relevant to me."_

Sam shuddered as a wave of Goosebumps rippled up her bare arms, her jacket sitting on the edge of the console suddenly looking rather inviting. She'd held off putting it back on after discarding it earlier, preferring just to wear her TAC vest.

"Relevant to… ah… relevant to the continued survival of the outpost. I think."

"_You think?"_

"It's just that… um; it looks like the computer has initiated some kind of survival mode by rationing power to only those systems vital to its continued operation. Unlike us, it doesn't require the lights to see what it's doing."

"_And the heating?"_

"The what?"

"_Heating, Carter. What about the heating?"_

"Oh, heating. Well… McKay's report mentioned… I can't remember. No, wait; he said something about the expedition discovering the city in its dormant state. Um, no lighting, heating, or other active power systems." Sam shivered again and snagged her jacket, draping it loosely around her shoulders. Her breath misted the air. "The outpost is probably reducing itself to the same level of inactivity."

"_So you're telling me if you don't run out of air then you'll freeze to death in the dark. Is that it?"_

Weariness tugged at her mind and wrapped even her most cohesive thoughts in clouds of doubt. "S-sir?" she stammered, unsure she'd heard his response correctly.

"_How much air do you have left?_

"Two hours, perhaps a little more… I think." Sam wasn't completely sure of anything right now. Overhead, the Ancient viewscreen was alive and dancing with a myriad of different cells of information, all there to feed her vital information, and all falling hideously short of making a whole lot of sense. Intuitively, she knew the air was getting thinner, the temperature dropping like a stone, but for some reason she couldn't quite remember why.

"_You think? Carter!"_

Sam tensed up at the whip-like sound of Jack's voice flooding her mind and bouncing off the metal walls, his verbal reprimand cutting a path through the haze in her mind. "Sorry," she whispered as she tugged her jacket tighter around her shoulders. "It's just getting a little hard to breathe in here." The small laptop screen showed a countdown to zero when the outpost would effectively be airless. Sam pinched the bridge of her nose as she strained to read the numbers. "Sir, if you can find the tray for the… um… crystals, there should be… time to…"

"_Carter!"_

"Can't concentrate."

"_Where's Daniel?"_

"Ah… I told him to go."

"_Go where?"_

"Huh?"

"_Carter, where did you send Daniel?"_

"The holo interface."

"_He's gone after that damn crystal?"_

"Sorry, sir… we had nothing to lose."

"_Okay, sit tight. I'm sending Teal'c back to get you both. The air at the sub-juncture is a little stale… make that a lot stale, but there's a heck of a lot more of it here."_

"I don't think there's any way to monitor the… what are we supposed to be doing again?"

"_Listen to me closely. I want you to do nothing more than sit on the floor and wait for Teal'c. Can you do that?"_

"Sit?"

"_On the floor. Lay down if you have to."_

"Daniel?"

"_He's a resourceful guy; don't worry about him for now."_

Back at the sub-juncture, Jack pummelled both fists on the face of the communications console and cursed his decision to split the team, despite both Carter and Daniel's insistences that it was necessary. A bad call was what it was, and was never going to be anything else, but at the time he felt choiceless.

"Teal'c!" Jack thumbed his radio and followed it up with a series of short clicks in a show of his growing frustration.

"_I am here, O'Neill."_

"Daniel and Carter are in trouble. I need you to pilot the tub to the outpost and bring them back here." Giving the order was easy, but the execution could be a little difficult. With the exception of the gene carriers in Atlantis, Jack was the only one, thus far, who had actually piloted an Ancient vessel. And while this ship might not require the gene to operate it, there would still be an element of skill and practice needed. Given Carter hadn't quite figured out if every piece of Ancient tech at the outpost responded without the gene, there was little choice but for Jack to remain at the sub-juncture and try to replace the damaged crystals.

"_What has transpired?"_

"Airs getting a little thin over there." Jack thought back to his radio con with Carter and her gradual inability to hold a coherent conversation. She'd quickly gone from sharing her theories with him, to barely being able to remember or understand what they were talking about. What concerned Jack even more was not knowing what condition Daniel was in. If Carter was starting to have trouble breathing and keeping warm, then there was a good chance Daniel was having the same problems. "Make that a lot thin. Daniel left to retrieve the crystal from the holo interface and hasn't returned."

"_Returning Colonel Carter and Daniel Jackson to the sub-juncture means they will be unable to manually reset the Stargate."_

Something Jack had totally forgotten about. "There's air in the jumper, right?"

"_There is."_

"First priority is to get them back to the jumper somehow."

"_I believe Engineer Mikah and I may be of some assistance. We have discovered a locker with what appears to be breathing apparatus. The devices are contained within suits, but I believe they can be separated for individual use."_

"Diving suits?" Jack said in an incredulous tone. "A little deep for snorkelling. What are the chances of the oxygen supply being viable after all this time?"

"_The chamber we found them in was sealed with a vacuum which I believe was intended to preserve them for future use." _

"Well, this is the future and we need them. Plan B. Get Carter and Daniel to the jumper, lock yourselves in and wait for my orders. With any luck, Teesan and I can find the crystal tray and you'll be able to get back into the control room. SG-1 saves the day yet again."

"_I would be pleased just to save this one city."_

"Yeah, well, in this case it's save the city, save the world. They kinda go hand in hand." Jack checked his watch and sought out Teesan, who was seated in front of the tether and making notes in his journal. "Okay," he said blowing out a long breath. "We don't have a lot of time here and it's a fair distance back to the outpost. Take Mickey with you and get him to bastardize the suits on the way back up to the tether."

"_And if we are unable to get the oxygen masks to function?"_

Something Jack considered to be a definite possibility. Being preserved in vacuum for thousands of years didn't guarantee a damn thing, even though the reports they'd received from the Atlantis expedition showed a city that had stood the test of time and extreme depth.

"Just do what you can."

To Be Continued...


	12. Chapter 12

The open pedestal swam before Daniel, swaying back and forth in his vision like a child's swing, and ramping up his nausea from barely manageable to the extreme. The beam from his flashlight, wavering haphazardly from the clip on his vest, only made matters worse when he found himself unable to concentrate on any one object in the room. He needed air and fast, but each attempt to take a deep breath only made him gag even more, and so he gave up trying.

"Sam," he whispered into his radio, frowning when she didn't answer after several attempts. There was something Daniel needed to remember, but his attempt at recalling an earlier conversation with her over the holographic interface only resulted in leaving him even more confused.

Around him, the room that housed the holographic interface and served as a library for the Yahut was a mess of haphazardly strewn bookshelves and scattered pieces of paper. The result of the quick packing job required to get the colonies historical record through the 'gate in the only thirty eight minute window they had.

Steadying his flashlight, Daniel looked at the open panel, at the small crystal tray nestled within the confines of the stocky pedestal, a sense of unease washing over him. He reached out to touch the tray, but something made him pull back at the last moment. "No power?"

Unlike the hexagonal crystals the SGC had recovered from other Ancient technology, these crystals were flat and largely transparent, save for a cross hatch design of blue lines scoring their surface. There was a vague sense of familiarity with what he was seeing, but Daniel couldn't pin it down. His mind wandered from trying to dredge up information fragments from past mission reports to suddenly forgetting what he was supposed to be doing.

"Come on." He hoisted his glasses on top of his head and rubbed at his eyes, straining to bring the tray back into focus. There were seven crystals—all identical in size and shape; save for the center crystal which was slightly larger and had engravings on both sides.

Eeny meenie miny moe. Should have been simple enough to choose a crystal or perhaps even take the lot, but Daniel wasn't sure anymore. His chest hurt and he was cold. The warmth his BDU jacket normally afforded him was gone and he fought to control his shivering.

"Sam?"

In the end he was choiceless and, unable to remember exactly why he was sitting in front of an open pedestal, he reached forward and pulled out the biggest crystal.

~oOo~

Teal'c manoeuvred the tiny craft up the tether in a seemingly endless spiral, adjusting course only to avoid dense clusters of seaweed and schools of larger marine life. The ship was being jostled from side to side by the strong current as water sluiced around the tether and created a flow on effect, pushing them off course every so often. He corrected for the latest nudge, shifting the piloting arm to the left to avoid colliding with the tether. Each time he adjusted for the current, he could hear Mikah groaning as he was being jostled about the cabin.

"I am sorry," Teal'c offered as a cursory show of sympathy, when in fact there was no avoiding the maneuver, unless they wanted to drift off with the current. "We should be approaching the outpost momentarily."

"Fine." Mikah groaned again and steadied himself with a hand to the backrest of Teal'c's chair, sliding himself into the co-pilot's seat and dragging the last diving suit with him. "I have managed to cut away the fabric without having to separate the oxygen tank from the mask, but I am unsure of the viability of the connecting tube." Mikah held up the suit to show him. The crudeness of the operation was obvious-having only Teal'c's field knife to cut away the rebreathing equipment from the suit-but there was no way they would have the time to dress Daniel Jackson and Colonel Carter in the suits in order to get oxygen to them.

Ridges in the cutaway fabric exposed the white tubing underneath, and Mikah flexed the pipe, wincing at the crunching sound it made. "It is possible whatever the tube is made of has begun to degrade over time."

"Then it would be wise not to stress it any further. We only need to rescue my companions and get them back to this vessel, not rely on the breathing apparatus for any long-term benefits."

Teal'c turned away and looked back out the forward window. Water peppered with bubbles and seaweed swirled by them as they made their way further up the tether. The ship's forward lights, barely useful in the dark depths, caught the shadow of something solid up ahead and Teal'c slowed their ascent as he bought up the HUD.

"I recommend you secure yourself." Teal'c engaged reverse thrusters and then utilized the same approach vector O'Neill had previously used to come about in a tight one hundred and eighty degree turn, presenting the ship's rear hatch to the station's docking port. The thrusters engaged and the craft slid smoothly home; the only sound coming from the clamps used to secure the craft in its docking cradle.

Mikah gathered up the four crudely stripped diving suits and nodded his readiness to Teal'c as he rose from his seat and moved to the rear of the ship.

Pushing past him, Teal'c took two of the suits and tossed them over his shoulder. "General O'Neill believes we will find Colonel Carter in the control room and Daniel Jackson at the holographic interface. It would be best if you were to assist Colonel Carter."

"Separate? Would it not be safer to stay together?"

"It would not. Little air remains inside the outpost and dividing our attention would be the most efficient way to assist them both. As Colonel Carter weighs less than Daniel Jackson, it is logical for you to help her. Do not waste time looking for me once you have found her. Make your way back here."

A cloud of doubt descended over Mikah's face. "And if the suits should fail to work adequately?"

"Then a greater element of haste is required. The distance between the jumper bay and the control room is quite short. You should be able to traverse it without much effort."

"Jumper?"

"A name the Tau'ri have given to other such vessels as this."

"The T—"

Teal'c stopped Mikah's question with a raised hand. "If time was not of the essence, I would be more than happy to educate you the many nuances of the Tau'ri language. However, we must move quickly."

"Colonel Carter?"

"Would be most grateful for any and all help."

Mikah nodded tightly and shifted one suit to his shoulder, holding the ovoid-shaped mask of the other one up in front of his face with the breathing vents face out.

"The mechanics of the suit are quite simple. The mask is made from a synthetic product that molds to your face when you press down at the sides. Once a seal is formed, air starts flowing from the portable supply." A rectangular, flat plastic container swung freely from the tube connected to the mask, and Teal'c could see that the slightly concave design allowed for it to fit snugly against the wearers back. The container—obviously an oxygen supply unit—wasn't large, which probably meant the suits weren't intended for long-term use.

"I have tested all four suits and they appear to work, but I did not maintain the seal for long just in case I used up the supply. There was a monitoring device on the wrist of each suit, however I was unable to get any of them to work and it was impossible to separate them from the fabric. I am guessing they regulated the suit's air supply."

"So we have no way to determine how much oxygen remains?"

"No."

~oOo~

Jack turned away from the communications console and buried his head in his hands, growling loudly in frustration. As used as he was to a mission going south, this situation was spiralling out of control at a rate that even astounded him. He should have pulled his team back to Earth-the Yahut right along with them-and left this place to the mercy of failing technology and a naquadah generator set to overload. Give the long-dead ghosts of the Ancients a good old SG-1 helping hand to blow the place to hell.

"General?"

He looked up and met Teesan's enquiring gaze; the man standing some distance away and clutching tightly onto the bag carrying the crystals like a lifeline. Jack winced at the fear he could see in his eyes and tried to force out a reassuring smile, knowing full well he was failing.

"It's nothing," he said with no enthusiasm at all, having none left to give. "The air's getting a little thin over there."

"Yes, so I heard."

"You did?" He looked briefly over his shoulder at the console. "Yeah, I guess you did."

"You doubt your judgement?"

Well, hell! Of course he did. "In leaving them there? Probably not one of my finest command decisions."

"And yet your comrades would disagree."

Jack knew they would, as much as he knew his decision-making process was based on the reality of the situation and putting his resources where they could make the most difference. Only, in this case, it was his perceived inability to read the situation that was giving him a moment of doubt; where he should have taken the safe path in the face of a problem not so easily solved.

"Yeah, well, we've been together a long time."

"I suspected as much." Teesan patted his bag and looked about the room. "What exactly are we looking for?"

"Ah! Actually, I'm not a hundred percent sure. The guys that built this place weren't exactly known for consistency when it came to architecture." Jack turned back to the communications console and bent down to look at its underside, noting the typical Ancient style of raised blocky writing against a squared base. "We're looking for some sort of housing, a retractable rack hidden on a wall or under a console."

"Hidden?"

"More like not quite obvious." Jack stood up from the console and shook out his legs, taking a moment to scan the room. "Getting your hands on Ancient technology isn't easy, but it's not impossible. But finding one of their cities is huge. You've heard of the Goa'uld?"

"I doubt there are many who have not."

"Yeah, well, they'd like you to think they invented the Stargate system, but in fact all they did was lay claim to the technology as their own."

Following Jack's lead, Teesan started moving between the various consoles scattered around the room, pushing against their frames and looking for anything that might hold a hidden space inside. Finding nothing and moving on to the next, he paused and turned back to Jack, a frown on his face. "We once believed the Goa'uld to be the masters of the gates. It wasn't until we discovered _Crellum Mare_ that we realized our assumption to be wrong."

"Really? What gave it away?" Jack left the console he was investigating and moved to the outer wall, searching for any breaks or imperfections in the façade. It was slow going; having only his flashlight and the station's meager emergency lights to guide him.

"The Goa'uld are not known to leave their prizes unguarded."

"And you weren't worried about them coming back?"

Teesan shucked his bag and placed it on top of one of the consoles so he could better check its underside. "There was a time covering several of our generations where the ruling elders feared anyone coming through the 'gate. We had no defenses, no way to fight off anyone who might want to take _Crellum Mare_ from us."

"But?"

"We were careful with our 'gate address, even to those we traded with or had known for a long time before we discovered the temple."

"Sounds like you were more worried about your allies than you were the Goa'uld."

"Both, perhaps… in equal part. We trade fairly, but that never discounts the sale from being far from reasonable."

"You've been burned."

"Burned?"

"Duped, scammed."

"Ah! Something like that."

"Well," Jack said, "I guess that explains Zolan's attitude."

"Quite."

~oOo~

_Crellum Mare_ was silent and dark; what little light there was from the overhead dome did nothing to take away a chill of fear that was slowly knotting in Teal'c's belly. Behind him, Mikah was inching his way around the small dive pool, his face ghoulishly light up by the flashlight he was carrying. They were both burdened with the make-shift breathing apparatus they carried, and Teal'c looked on appreciatively as Mikah shifted the weight of his on his shoulders, holding the spare for Colonel Carter in his free hand.

Behind them, the yawing of metal signalled that the jumper was settling in its docking cradle, riding eddies of water swirling around the port.

Fear was a great motivator, especially when every breath you took came at a price to over-taxed lungs. Any fingers of doubt Teal'c had about finding his teammates was pushed away as he and Mikah paused at the entrance way to the main hall. Juggling the spare suit in one hand and his flashlight in the other, he ran the beam along the far wall and down in the general direction of the darkened Stargate. The ampitheater was as deathly dark as it was silent.

Teal'c donned his mask but left it perched on top of his head, watching as Mikah did the same. "Conserving your supply is admirable, but losing your direction because you are disorientated serves no purpose," he said, cocking his head in the direction of Mikah's mask, his meaning clear.

"And you?"

"Jaffa have a superior lung capacity. I will be fine."

Needing no further encouragement, Mikah lowered his mask and formed a seal, nodding after a moment to show he could breathe normally.

"That way," Teal'c whispered, directing the beam towards the far wall and the open doors of the control room. "Retrieve Colonel Carter and return to the jumper, and do not forget to seal the hatch once you are inside."

~oOo~

"Over here!" Teesan had followed the outer curve of the sub-juncture wall, running his hand over much of the exposed surface in what he considered was probably a useless search, until he came across a square-shaped indentation. A slight push was all it had taken for part of the wall to slide out at him, revealing a cradle laden with various colored crystals. "I believe this is what you seek."

Jack quickly crossed the room and rounded the tether, pulling up short as he reached the crystal bank. "Sweet!" He waggled his fingers at Teesan. "Let's see if this baby works."

"Baby?"

"You have the crystal, right?"

"Oh!" Teesan fumbled with the flap on his bag and withdrew the red crystal. "This one?"

Jack nodded crisply and took the crystal, holding it up in the dim light and giving it a cursory inspection. He was no expert on how they were supposed to look, but in comparison to the one Carter had shown him earlier, this one looked positively pristine. The housing tray Teesan had discovered gave up a rainbow of crystals of various shapes and sizes, but the master control crystal was obvious in its location alone, at the very center of the tray. Jack pocketed the new one and set about pulling the old one out. After a firm tug, it slid free of its housing. The crystal still had patches of red showing through a spider web of fracture lines, like it had burned out at some point. He handed the shard to Teesan, who set about putting it in his bag. It was a simple matter to replace it with the new crystal.

"That is it?" Teesan asked as Jack stood back to investigate the rest of the tray.

Jack gave him a sideways glance, brow settled in a frown, before pushing the tray back into the wall. No sooner had it clicked in place then several consoles around the room immediately lit up, streams of text scrolling on their screens.

"Now that's more like it!" Jack tried to hide the satisfaction and relief in his tone, but failed. "At last!"

The sub-juncture was slowly coming alive. Along with the waking consoles, the lights steadily rose to comfortable level, and the hum of other machinery could be felt underfoot. Jack worked his way to the first of the consoles, and giving it a cursory look moved on to the rest until he stopped at one that looked promising.

"This," he said, waving Teesan over, "is what we're looking for. Can't read the lingo to save myself, but this display looks eerily familiar to the one Carter and Daniel were working from."

"I agree." Teesan dumped his bag on the floor and took out his journal. "I made some notes on the stations power conduit grid while Doctor Jackson was attempting to monitor the change of power to your generator. They could be of some use."

"Sweet! But let's see if we can raise Teal'c first."

~oOo~

The control room was dark and cold. Even overhead, the dome, earlier alive with the movement of marine wildlife and sway of seaweed, seemed frozen and lifeless. The only light Mikah could see was coming from the large view screen. He wasted no time crossing to the Ancient console and found Sam slumped at his base, one had still holding onto her broken radio, the other resting limply on the floor.

"Colonel Carter," he called as he placed the scaled down diving suit beside her and moved to fit the mask to her face. Almost instantly, fog filled the mask, and Mikah breathed a sigh of relief to find she was still alive. After a few moments, the mask cleared as fresh oxygen passed through.

"Colonel!" He shook her shoulders, but wasted very little time after that trying to get her attention, aware as he was that time was definitely not on their side as far as the viability of the breathing apparatus went. Quickly, he pulled her into his chest and hoisted one of her arms over his shoulder, while curling his own arm around her waist and heaving them both up. His mask slipped, and he struggled to keep them standing, cold and stale air instantly stealing his breath. Mikah leaned into the console, using it to hold Colonel Carter upright while he refitted his mask. That done, he took her back into his arms, and looked towards the open door and the ampitheater beyond.

~oOo~

Teal'c checked the seal on Daniel Jackson's mask and then slipped his fingers along the crease in his neck, searching for a pulse. Fast and unsteady. It hadn't taken much to know exactly what had happened; the scorch mark on Daniel's right hand told the story of his attempt to retrieve the holographic data crystal from the pedestal, and finding it just inches from his outstretched hand only confirmed the attempt. Teal'c deposited the crystal in one of the pockets of his TAC vest and set about hoisting Daniel off the cold floor. He was a dead weight, and Teal'c's attempts to rouse him had been unsuccessful. There was no time to wonder if moving him was the right thing to do. Teal'c had to move.

He checked the time on his watch. 7 minutes. For the first few minutes after parting ways with Mikah, Teal'c had fought using his breathing mask, attempting to weigh up the usefulness of preserving oxygen for when it was most necessary, but he'd only gone a hundred feet or so when his lungs started burning, crying out for air. Teal'c had quickly given in. And that was where his problems started. By the time he'd reached the holo room, the usefulness of the mask he was wearing was starting to run out, and he realized his oxygen tank was either damaged from sitting unused and unmaintained for so long, or the oxygen it held was more depleted than predicted. Without functioning supply monitors there had been no way to tell.

With Daniel Jackson hoisted across his shoulders, Teal'c was just able to make out his face through the mask he wore, and could see puffs of air misting the faceplate. A wave of relief washed through him, but was short lived when he knew without doubt that at some point along the journey back to the jumper he would have to swap masks to guarantee they made it make. Without oxygen, neither of them would survive.

Ten minutes. They were running out of time.

To Be Continued...


	13. Chapter 13

"Breathe slowly," Mikah urged, holding Colonel Carter's hands away from the mask as she tried to take it off in her still-disorientated state. He had managed to get them both back to the little vessel, and had just sealed the rear hatch when the colonel started to revive.

"Where are we?" she asked, her gaze unfocused and her brow creased into a deep frown. "Daniel?"

"Teal'c has gone to retrieve him. We are in the rear compartment of the puddle jumper."

"Mikah?"

"Yes." He smiled warmly, glad that she was starting to recognize her surroundings. "General O'Neill sent us back to retrieve you. He and Teesan are back at the sub-juncture."

"The sub-juncture? Oh. The crystal tray?"

"I am unsure as to whether they have found it or not. We have been out of contact with them for some time."

The hatch light at the rear of the jumper flicked from blue to read as the hatch itself started to rise.

"I require assistance!" Teal'c barreled through the hatch with Daniel still hoisted over his shoulders. He quickly lowered him to the ground and ripped off his face mask, leaving his own still in place. "Your mask," he said, wasting no time and virtually ripping it out of Mikah's grasp and putting it over Daniel's face.

"Teal'c?" Sam pulled her own mask off and dropped to Daniel's side, quickly noting the blueness of his lips and his pale skin. "What happened?"

"There was a fault with my oxygen supply and I was forced to use the mask reserved for Daniel Jackson. I tried to return here without having to use his, but I was unable to support us both."

"No," Sam said, placing a hand comfortingly on Teal'c's shoulder. "You did the right thing." She bent down and rubbed Daniel's chest, encouraging him to breath, and spotted the burn mark on his right hand. "The crystal?"

Teal'c patted his pocket. "It would appear the pedestal held a residual charge, enough to propel him some distance. I am unsure as to whether the crystal is damaged or not."

Daniel coughed. Spit spraying the inside of the faceplate.

"Daniel?"

But Sam got nothing more in response than a muffled grunt to show he was still in the land of the living. She continued her gentle massage of his chest until the jumper suddenly rocked, and Teal'c sprung to his feet, glancing over his shoulder to check that the rear hatch had sealed behind him.

Sam looked up, a flicker of panic reflected in her eyes. "That was another chamber decompressing!"

"We are safe here."

"No, we're not. The naquadah generator should have provided enough power to the city to reinforce the structural integrity and stop the remaining compartments from decompressing. Something must have gone wrong."

Teal'c frowned darkly. "Is there anything we can do?"

Another explosion tore at the city, its shock wave quickly rippling through the jumper and jarring it against the docking cradle. Sam had one hand on Daniel's right shoulder and the other on the small seat she had been sitting on, but the force of the explosion was still enough to send her almost sprawling on top of Daniel.

"Nothing!" she ground out as another compartment exploded, this time close enough to send Teal'c sideways into the far wall behind the pilot's seat. "Either the naquadah generator has failed completely or the chambers that decompressed before we could connect it have caused more damage than I suspected."

"If O'Neill is able to replace the damaged crystals would it still be possible to manually reset the Stargate and dial out?"

Suddenly the jumper was lifted from its cradle in perfect timing with another explosion. So close this time that the sound was almost deafening, even from inside their tiny craft. Teal'c stumbled forward and into the pilot's chair, leaning over the console to look out of the tiny window. Even though the ship was facing outwards away from the outpost, he could see debris—twisted fragments of metal and other flotsam—moving at a clipped speed away from the remains of the city.

"I believe now would be a good time to leave."

~oOo~

"What the hell?" Jack checked the progress of the jumper on one of the console screens as it coiled its way down the massive tether towards the sub-juncture. He'd tried calling them once while they were still on the station but there had been no response, and he could only assume that Teal'c and Mikah were too focused on finding Daniel and Carter than to answer them. "Something's gone wrong."

"Wrong?"

"The idea was to find them and sit tight while we tried to replace the damn crystal."

Teesan looked over Jack's shoulder to the image on the screen. "They are returning."

"Definitely not part of the plan."

"You fear they were unsuccessful?"

"In finding Carter and Daniel? No. Getting them out of there alive is another matter, though. And Daniel doesn't have such a hot track record when it comes to dying."

Teesan cocked his head to one side and stared at him through a mask of confusion. "Dying?"

Jack rubbed his brow, suddenly aware of having invited himself to giving up a complicated explanation to satisfy the man's curiosity. "Yeah, maybe I didn't word that right. Let's just say he's had far too many close calls over the last few years."

"_O'Neill, this is Teal'c."_

Saved by the Jaffa. Jack clicked his radio mic. "Teal'c! Change of plans?"

"_The city is decompressing beyond Colonel Carter's ability to save. We were forced to return."_

"Crap!" Somewhere behind him, Teesan dragged in an audibly strangled breath. Jack didn't have time to offer him up any diplomatic words of sympathy. It would have to wait for later. "Tell me you have them both?"

"_We have successfully rescued Colonel Carter and Daniel Jackson."_

"Great!"

"_However, Daniel Jackson is still unconscious and has suffered minor burns to his hands."_

"Okay, not so good. Got himself zapped trying to retrieve that damn crystal, right?"

"_Indeed. We have docked at the sub-juncture. I would suggest Teesan return to the puddle jumper to care for Daniel Jackson while Mikah, Colonel Carter and I return to your position."_

"Carter, you there?"

"_I am, sir. Thanks for the rescue."_

"Air getting a bit thin over there?"

"_More like totally gone. I'm not sure what happened to the time estimate, but it was way off."_

"Well, you can thank Teal'c and Mickey for their ingenuity."

"_We managed to get a look at the city before we turned for our run down the tether. I'm sorry, sir, but the last series of compartments to decompress were connected to the main chamber leading to the amphitheater that housed the Stargate. Even if you managed to replace the control crystal, there would be no way to get to the control room, assuming it survived."_

"So? Now what?"

"_Without the command console to regulate the outpost's critical systems, and the Stargate dynamo to feed the shield more power, it'll only be a matter of time before it collapses."_

"Boom?"

"_I'm not sure what will happen, but I expect the water will rush outwards initially before it starts to freeze in the vacuum of space."_

Jack watched Teesan thread his way through the maze of consoles as he made his way towards the hallway leading to the jumper bay. "Yeah," he said after a beat. "Well, one piece of good news: Teesan and I found the tray and managed to replace the command crystal. We've got several working consoles here. Not sure exactly what we're looking at, but if red is a universal constant for things going wrong then I'm pretty sure we're hooped."

"_We'll be with you shortly, sir."_

"Just you and Mickey. Teal'c, stay with Daniel in the jumper... just in case we need get out of here fast."

~oOo~

Carter looked drawn and pale, and to Jack's way of thinking she was a little blue around the lips, but then the lighting in the sub-juncture wasn't exactly dazzling. She was leaning over one of the larger consoles, squinting at the wiggly lines that apparently made sense to her but no one else.

"Damn," she said, thumping her fists on the display in frustration before stepping away from the console completely. "It doesn't make sense to me that the Ancients wouldn't have a command console here as a back up to the main one in the city."

"At the core, perhaps?" Mikah suggested helpfully from the other side of the console. "Could this facility serve a purpose secondary to the running of the complex?"

"You could be right. We haven't seen the water making facility either, which I can only assume is located in the core or at several smaller facilities spread through the ocean."

"Unreasonable if the Ancients did indeed channel large volumes of water through the portal?"

"Not really. Extra maintenance issues aside, spreading facilities out at least guarantees that if one breaks down, the others can pick up the slack. Could also be something said for increasing and decreasing volume at a constant rate by the use of more than one water production facility." Sam shrugged. "If not many, then perhaps one tethered to the core? I don't know and it's not important anymore."

"Carter?" Jack clicked his fingers rapidly to get her attention. "What _do_ you know?"

She stepped back to the console and toggled the image on the screen. "This bothers me," she said pointing something that resembled an undulating wave of red water.

"It's red. Nothing good ever came from something red and blinky."

"If Daniel was here to translate, I'm pretty certain he'd tell me this is related to power levels within the complex. I can trace the wave back to its source, but the destination doesn't quite make sense."

"Much like you at the moment, Carter."

Sam looked across at him, her expression totally deadpan. "I think what we're seeing here is a build up of power somewhere in what is left of the city. Now, either the Stargate dynamo is working again, though that's basically impossible, or power from the naquadah generator is being rerouted... somehow."

"Rerouted where? And if the city has decompressed then how can the generator still be active?"

"Back at us. And I don't know. Could be that the first module where you and Teal'c placed the generator is still intact. It's possible, but doesn't explain the amount of power production we're seeing here, given that I set the naquadah generator to its lowest operating level..."

"Carter?"

"It sustained damage in the initial blast and I could only repair what I could detect... and had the ability to fix with our limited supplies and diagnostic capability. It's possible the setting mode sustained more damage than I suspected."

"And?"

"Nothing," she said exasperatedly. "There's not a damn thing we could have done differently under the circumstances, sir. The generator was the only power source we had at our disposal that could have bought us the time to try and put a patch on the problem. What we're left with now is a power build-up in the outpost, which, now we've replaced the command crystal here, effectively repairing the original fault, will reach critical and either blow up the entire complex or be shunted down the tether and straight to the core."

"Again. And?"

"And... we've gone from not enough power to having too much."

"So my initial boom was right?"

"Probably."

"Sometimes I hate being right."

"With no way to regulate the flow from here and equally no way of knowing whether the conduits can handle that much raw energy..."

"Options?"

"Other than being as far away from this place and the core when it hits?"

"Okay," Jack sucked in a deep breath and hissed it out through clenched teeth. "The puddle jumper has just become a lifeboat with limited life support and no rations." He raised his hand to his radio to call Teal'c, but stopped when he saw Carter staring at him with a thoughtful expression on her face. "What?"

"Your radio."

"What about it?"

She turned away from him and back to the console. "Long range communications. These consoles are similar to the ones the Atlantis expedition found in the city; at least as far as I can tell from the image packet they sent us."

"Well, yeah. I guess."

"And you used the communications function to contact me in the city."

"Right."

"Even with a race as advanced as the Ancients, the basic principal of radio communications is the same. All that changes is the level of technology and our ability to use it." Jack could tell from the steadily rising tone of Carter's voice that she was working on some unvoiced plan. "Can't guarantee it'll work, but there's a chance we can get a signal to the Prometheus, assuming she's still in the area."

"That's a pretty big area, Carter."

"The jumpers here were made for use at extreme depth, and given the distance from the outpost down to the core, well, we're talking a lot of water. I don't think it's a stretch to assume they have subspace capabilities if the Ancients also intended them to function as lifeboats in the event of some type of catastrophic disaster."

"And blowing up their city...?"

"Definitely counts as catastrophic."

The lights in the sub-juncture control room flickered, and around them the walls of the small complex started to vibrate, drawing Jack's attention straight to the tether running through the room, like there might be something to see. Carter was hunched over the console, her fingers tracking the lines of red dancing across its surface like an old-fashioned arcade game.

"Carter?"

"I don't know, sir, but I don't suggest sticking around to find out."

"Mickey!" Jack tried to find the little technician in the dim light, finally spotting him moving towards the hallway that led to the jumper bay. "Good man," he breathed under his breath as he grabbed Carter by the back of her vest and shoved her in the same direction.

"What about the shield, sir?"

"Run first, chat later, Carter!"

~oOo~

"Daniel Jackson?"

Cool fingers tapped his cheek with enough force to almost sting, but it was when they trailed down to a point on the side of his neck that Daniel decided to pull away. Only moving elicited pain in pretty much every part of his body.

"Who...?"

"It is I. Teal'c."

Daniel laughed lightly, eyes still firmly closed. Only his determination to stay safely asleep was wavering.

"You find something amusing?"

"You," he said, still smiling but fighting back a headache blossoming behind his eyes. "You sound like Monsieur LeClerc?"

"Who is this LeClerc?"

"Never mind. You wouldn't understand. British humor." Another nap was sounding good about now. A chance to blow off this headache and all the other aches and pains demanding attention he didn't have the energy to give.

"You must remain awake, Daniel Jackson."

"Is it my watch?"

"Indeed it is."

Damn. The pain was coming from another night camping out on some backwater planet on the spiral arm of a galaxy, far, far, far...

"Daniel Jackson!"

Daniel groaned in protest, but managed to open up an eye, only to find Teal'c hovering above him.

"Umm. Hi."

"Are you well?"

"Am I?"

"You have been unconscious for some time."

Really? That was news. "Not asleep?"

"No. Despite O'Neill repeatedly insisting that being asleep and unconscious are the same thing, they are most definitely not. You do not recall what has transpired?"

Clarity of moment was a funny thing when it was slapped so forcibly in your face. Daniel tried to curl onto his side, but was held firm to the floor by one of Teal'c's massive hands on his chest. Moving was definitely out of the question, but then it suddenly wasn't necessary when he took a moment to take in his surroundings.

"Right," he said with enough disappointment in his tone to convey to anyone watching that his brain hadn't been fried, and that he now remembered why his hand hurt. And that realization brought with it a sense of urgency. "The crystal?"

Teal'c tapped a pocket on his vest. "Here."

"What happened?"

Teal'c pulled his hand away and slid it under Daniel's right armpit, helping him to sit up. "Of which event do you refer?"

"That bad?"

"Technician Mikah and I rescued you and Colonel Carter from the Yahut city before vast sections of it decompressed."

"I remember some small explosions before you and Jack returned the generator to the city, but..."

"Several more compartments decompressed closer to the central structure. We were able to get a visual on the city as we left down the tether, but there was too much debris in the ocean to give an accurate assessment of events. Needless to say it is unlikely that much of the city is intact."

"And the outpost?"

"Colonel Carter has reported that something of the original outpost remains, but the situation is most dire."

"Well, ah, thanks for the rescue?"

"You are most welcome."

To Be Continued...


	14. Chapter 14

Jack's shout of "Incoming" barely preceded him, Carter and Mikah barreling through the rear hatch of the jumper and almost landing on Daniel, who was still resting on the floor. As he crossed the threshold, Jack slammed the access panel at the rear, closing the hatch and sealing them in, before he pushed past a slightly confused Teal'c and slid into the pilot's chair.

"We're outta here!"

"The outpost?" Teal'c asked, taking his spot in the co-pilot's position. Behind him, Carter and Mikah had crammed into the small passenger section next to Teesan.

"Gone," Carter said breathlessly. "Or it will be soon. The sub-juncture power systems took a hit."

The tiny jumper sprang to life as Jack urged it forward out of its docking cradle and maneuvered it away from the station, taking it on a direct course towards the surface.

"Sir!"

"Not now, Carter."

"You can't make a run for the shield while it's still up."

"Why?"

"Remember the conversation about the city bobbing to the surface? Anything that comes into direct contact with the shield will be destroyed. It was designed purely for containment."

"So, what? We ride close to the surface and wait for the shield to collapse?"

Daniel cradled his burned hand to his chest as he struggled to sit up, finally finding a spot between Sam and Mikah's legs for support. "You can't, Jack," he said wearily.

"You, too?"

"It's like riding a wave."

"Daniel's right, sir. We need to use the momentum of the escaping water to carry us out into space otherwise we risk being torn apart when the shield collapses."

"What? So whether the core explodes or not, we're still going to get hit by a tidal force of water regardless?"

"Yes. The subject of the core is moot. It's the shield that's the problem, because one way or the other it's going down. And when it does, the ocean will be blasted out into space and us along with it, just by its sheer volume." Carter patted Daniel on the shoulder to get his attention, to let him know she was moving forward, but frowned when he met her with a grimaced smile. "You okay?" she asked softly.

"Yeah. Who'd have thought I'd develop some sympathy for McKay."

"Over one little zap?"

Daniel held out his hand and inspected the red welts on his palm. "At least we got the crystal. Has to count for something."

"Carter! Get up here."

Sam nudged past Daniel and squeezed herself between the pilot and co-pilots chairs. "And there's something else, sir."

The sub-juncture fell behind them, quickly being swallowed up by the vast billowing tendrils of seaweed and sea grasses that had grown out of the tether. Around them, debris continued to puncture the water on its inevitable plunge towards the core. Most of the fragments were about the size of the tiny shuttle, but every so often larger pieces of the doomed complex tore past them with enough force to generate their own current, and in turn capturing the ship and tossing them from side to side. "Yes," Jack ground out as he forced the vessel hard to starboard to avoid particularly large piece that was hurtling down towards them, "because we don't have enough to worry about already. What is this something else, Carter?"

"The shield is working like the skin of a large water balloon."

"Meaning?"

"When it pops, the water will be forced outwards, initially at quite a pace."

"And then it'll slow, right?"

"Yes. Well, kind of."

"Interesting stuff, but what does that mean for us?" Another piece of debris sailed past the ship off the port side, slicing through a large tendril of red seaweed and dragging the amputated piece along in its wake.

"It means that if we don't clear the surface almost as soon as the shield collapses, then we could be caught in the remaining mass."

"She means we'll freeze, Jack," Daniel added from behind Sam's right shoulder.

"Almost, but not quite. The water will boil and then freeze. When water boils it turns into vapor, which instantly freezes into a solid state."

"Snow?"

"Yes, sir. Or, more likely in this case because of the sheer volume of water, ice."

"So, getting caught in all of this..." he waved to the water beyond the forward screen of the jumper.

"Very bad, depending on how much of the mass we get caught in. The exposed surface of the water will vaporize on contact with the cold of space."

"So, we don't want to be there."

"Yes, sir, we do."

"We do?"

"Yes. It all comes down to how long it takes for the outer surface of the water mass to vaporize and then freeze. The deeper we are, the greater the very real chance that we'll end up frozen solid."

"And? So? Freezing is...?"

"Bad. Very bad, sir."

They were tracking upwards now. Jack had a visual of the tether on the vessel's tiny HUD, and used it as a guide to keep them at what he thought was a safe distance from the sub-juncture and the denser area of ocean where fragments of the city continued to rain down. The arms of seaweed that stretched out from the tether were growing more and more dense, their coloring lighter and striated. And off in the distance, through water that was showing the occasional lighter hues of blues and greens, there were dark shadows moving.

Jack tapped the screen, pointing to a cluster of large marine creatures that were moving at a clipped speed towards the surface. "You think they know something's up?"

"Probably," Sam replied sourly. "Sir, you need to access the ship's sub-space communication and try and send out an SOS."

"Teal'c?" Jack cocked his head towards the console in front of Teal'c. "Should be over there somewhere, if this model is anything like the ones we've seen."

"Sending out a distress signal with a set of gate coordinates should be enough to give anyone who responds a general idea of our position."

"Including any Goa'uld who might be hiding out in these parts."

"A rescue is a rescue, Jack."

"Yes, Daniel. Just putting our imminent doom on the table so we can see which ending we like best."

And then it began.

A point on the tether, represented on the HUD as a now brilliant flare of white light, pulsed for a second, quickly followed by another much further down the line. The sub-juncture had been hit by a massive overload with enough force to destroy it, but not before channeling more power down the remainder of the tether and in to the core. Both flashes fired off in quick succession, and with enough brilliance that their destructive meaning couldn't be missed.

"This is it! Hold on!" Jack checked his speed and direction, making sure the nose of the vessel was pointing towards the surface. He was waiting for the first of the shock waves to wrap itself around them and propel them upwards. Sam and Daniel quickly shuffled back into the cabin and on to the floor; the seats were useless. There was very little to hold on to.

Water pressure squeezed down hard on the ship as powerful currents generated forward of the approaching shock wave tried to rush past. Jack was battling for control now, to keep the ship on an even keel and to stop it from twisting to starboard in an attempt to navigate into calmer water, which he doubted existed.

"Carter!"

"Sir, the shield has to be down!"

"Punch it?"

He didn't wait for her answer. He took as much power as the ship could give him and shot for the surface. The initial shock wave from the blast didn't have nearly as much force as Jack was expecting, so when it hit the tail of the ship it almost sent it plowing nose-down into the stream of the current they were riding. He battled for control, the wave fought back, finally giving them enough room to ride it like a slipstream. Only behind the first wave, there was a second, and it caught their tail and spun them off to port.

"Crap!" Jack swore as he was forced back into his seat.

Teal'c was slammed sideways when the second wave struck. He tried to find leverage on the bulkhead, but instead found himself covering his face as the center console exploded and sent a hail of sparks and debris showering into the cabin beyond. The console fire died as quickly as it had lived; a small mercy in such a confined space, and where they were going to be forced to live off what little air supply the ship had.

"Please tell me you got that message off?"

Teal'c nodded grimly.

The water churned all around them. Jack swore he could see marine life caught in the currents, desperately trying to swim to the surface, probably unaware that a worse death would meet them in space then the one they would get in the quickly freezing depths of the water.

"Sir!" Carter shouted out from somewhere behind him, and he could just see the fingers of one hand in his peripheral vision, as she waved at something off to the port. It was a fragment of the city. Jagged edges of metal, that had likely once been a wall or floor of one of the living compartments, sailed past them with so much force that there was no tumbling motion. The object was quite literally being propelled like a missile. Jack almost laughed at the absurdity of it all when he briefly spotted one of the Yahut cooking stoves still attached to its underside.

He dragged his attention back to the HUD, and to the now peppered display that represented other objects caught in the shock waves.

"Incoming," he called out, just a fraction too late as something impacted with the starboard side of the vessel, raking down its side before rushing past the window. The ship lurched to port with the impact, tossing Daniel, Sam and the two Yahut up against the side wall. Jack heard Daniel grunt in pain as Sam landed on him.

The water around them resembled a soup of sea creatures, debris from the city, and shredded masses of seaweed. Jack changed the HUD display to an internal scan and cursed under his breath as the self-diagnostic program tried to pinpoint damage to the ship. Systems were crashing everywhere. He could already see that one of the drive pods had shut down completely; the very one that had been hit to starboard. Sensors along the skin of the craft registered hot spots that meant nothing to Jack at first, until a large whale-like creature moved directly into their path, and he could see its skin blistering and cracking.

"The water is boiling!" Sam called out from behind him.

"No shit," he cursed again. Somewhere ahead of them was the surface and it was vaporizing quickly. And behind them, the surge from multiple shock waves was slowing as the water quickly began to freeze. Jack urged the little ship forward, desperately coaxing every last ounce of power from her engines. She protested; her metal shell groaned and warped as the temperature went from boiling to near freezing in the blink of an eye.

"Come on, come on." Jack's mantra, whispered as it already was, faded completely against the rising noise of water freezing against the hull. And something struck the rear hatch. Once. Twice.

"Jack!"Daniel called out.

Jack could already see the bulk of a dying whale-like creature on the ship's scanner. Its greater mass had propelled it faster through the water and brought it colliding into the rear hatch, nudging the craft forward with each successive surge, until finally after what felt like minutes, it fell off to one side. By the time its massive head had drawn up level with the cockpit, Jack could tell the creature was already dead.

The ship's forward momentum fell rapidly to a crawl. It almost felt as though something was trying to claw them backwards into the icy depths behind. Sam pulled herself up off the floor and stumbled up to the pilot's chair, taking a quick look at the HUD and then beyond to the view screen.

"We need more power."

"That's all she wrote, Carter." Jack waved a hand at the instrument panel, and tapped the power read-out display. "We're down to one working drive pod."

"The surface?"

He found the read out on the display and smiled tightly. It was going to be close. "Twenty feet... give or take." The inky darkness of the water now held an almost mosaic quality as it slowly froze, trapping debris and what Jack assumed was dead and dying marine life in its icy grasp. Up ahead, the surface taunted them by showing off its snowy surface, the color bleeding through the frigid water with just enough clarity to let them know that the safety of free space was just beyond their reach.

"We are going to die here." Further back in the cabin, Teesan was curled up against one of the bulkheads and clinging tightly on to his bag as though it was his most prized possession. Fear shone in his wide eyes and he pulled his light jacket tighter around his body, as though he could already feel the cold leaching through the metal skin of the ship.

Jack almost felt as though he should respond, but Teal'c cut him off with a question about weapons.

"Maintenance drone," Jack supplied, forgetting momentarily about the little librarian. "I don't think weapons were part of the ship's manifest." He turned to Carter. "You said the surface boils first and then freezes. Right?"

"I know what you're thinking, sir. It's not a continuous reaction."

"So, no chance the layers will just boil off until it reaches us?"

"No, sir."

"My life as a comet?" Jack held her gaze for a moment and then sunk back into his chair, shutting down the HUD with a swipe at the instrument panel. "This is the point where I ask for suggestions."

"What about the Prometheus?" Daniel asked, having levered himself off the floor to sit behind Teal'c. His burnt hand was cradled to his chest. "Their flight plan was supposed to bring them into this system at the end of their first survey week."

"Which should be any time soon if they stick to their orders." Jack nodded to the comm panel. "Teal'c? Try it again."

"No longer functioning. I was able to send off an initial message when we left the sub-juncture."

"But we've got no way of knowing if the signal was able to penetrate through the water." Jack pinched the bridge of his nose and tried to reconcile his thoughts, come up with some sort of plan. "Tick tock, time's up." He straightened in his chair and reached for the ships controls, punching in a series of commands that instantly shut down the lighting in the cabin.

"Ah, Jack?"

"It's either freeze to death here or out there in space where we might have a chance of being picked up, Daniel." He worked the controls of the Ancient submersible and seconds later the background noise of the life support systems, almost silent unless you knew to listen for them, shut down. Almost instantly, the one remaining operational drive pod thrummed loudly as the power from the support systems was diverted, and the ship once again picked up speed.

Outside, the ice and water slush swirled around the craft, finally giving up its grip to let it worm to the surface, breaking free with none of the grace of a ship under control, but with enough momentum to clear the cooling mass.

Turbulence tore at the ship now: they had traded the currents of water for a region of space where once a planet of considerable mass had generated its own gravity. "Can't catch a break," Jack said under his breath as he tried to navigate through the troughs of instability, finally managing to slip the vessel into a region of calm. Behind them, the frozen remains of what was once _Minitos_ hung in space like a rigid corpse. Fingers of ice crawled out from the lopsided mass, and a haze of super-chilled air created a halo effect over its surface.

Jack shook the image off and guided the ship into open space; taking up a position well beyond the dissipating gravity well of the now lost planet. Satisfied with their location, he flipped life support back on and shut down the jumper's remaining drive pod, happy to let them drift in the dead of space.

"Nearest planet with a Stargate?" Jack turned in his chair to take in his battered team, meeting their weary gazes one by one. "Anyone?"

"Not in our lifetime," Sam said in a resigned tone. "We just have to hope the Prometheus picked up our message."

"What about this system?" Daniel had his burned hand tucked up side the cuff of his BDU jacket and cradled across his lap. He looked tired, and Jack wasn't lost on the fact that he and Carter had just about suffocated inside the city when the life support systems shut down. Nor had he forgotten that Daniel had been electrocuted trying to retrieve the crystal from the holo pedestal.

"There is nothing here," Mikah said after a moment. He'd left his spot at the rear of the cabin and had moved up next to Daniel, bringing himself further into the conversation. Teesan, Jack noted, still wore the look of a doomed man, despite their close escape. Not that Jack could blame the guy, because what he'd failed to convey to the others was that the ship was now operating on limited life support systems and an even more limited oxygen supply. "The only other body in this system is a small planetoid, whose orbit is too close to the sun to support life."

"You've been there?" Sam asked, and then qualified the question with, "I mean, you're sure about this?"

"I am. We were able to glean a limited amount of information via our interface with the city's computers, which included a map of this system and several neighboring ones."

"Okay, so not this system but what about the others?"

"Of that I am unsure." Mikah twisted in his seat to look at Teesan, who shrugged and shook his head. "Our historical records only mentioned those worlds with which we conducted trade. There was never any reason for us to notate that which we did not need or had never been to."

"Well, I doubt it matters anyway," said Jack as he turned back to the controls and tried to bring up the diagnostic display. "We've got maybe enough power to run life support systems for a few days, assuming we leave ourselves adrift."

Daniel leaned back against the jumper wall, dropped his chin to his chest and let out a pained chuckle. "And there's the ration problem."

"What rations? We don't have any."

"Yeah, Jack... that's the problem."

Jack climbed out of his seat and squeezed his way into the rear of the jumper, waving to the broken comm panel as he passed. "Carter, see what you can do with that thing."

~o0o~

The jumper cabin was quiet, save for Jack's snoring and the barely perceptible sound of the life support systems. Beyond the front viewscreen, distant stars twinkled in the heavens, forming a stunning backdrop against one of this system's satellites. Even from this far out, Daniel could see dusty rings of reds and oranges looping around an ochre-colored planet. There was no life to be had there. According to Sam, the atmosphere was great for methane breathers, but not so good for anyone else.

He pulled his attention away from the planet and down to the diagnostic panel, and to the ship's power supply reading. Daniel knew next to nothing about Ancient vessels, only what he had seen when they had discovered the time ship back on Harry Maybourne's world, but it didn't take an engineering degree to know that red meant bad. Jack had already shut down short and long-range sensors, and dialed down the cabin's oxygen supply in an attempt to ration it out for as long as possible. Power was the problem, because generating oxygen was just as important as keeping them all warm in the cold of space, and already the air was thin and they were getting cold.

Daniel turned away from the viewscreen and tried to get comfortable in the pilot's chair. His hand hurt mercilessly, and his fingers were starting to cramp badly from being held in a fist for too long.

"You are in pain?"

He looked up at Teesan in the co-pilots chair and tried to dismiss the claim with a smile, but his effort fell flat when the little librarian shook his head.

"It only hurts when I laugh," Daniel eventually said when he couldn't come up with anything more convincing. "Not buying it, huh?"

"Buying?"

"As in, you don't believe me?"

"Ah! Would you tell me the truth if you were dying?"

"I'm sorry... dying?"Daniel couldn't hide the surprise in his voice. "Did you just say dying?"

"Yes. As in death. Your General O'Neill mentioned something earlier to me about your 'track record' for dying. "

"Sooo... while Sam and I were suffocating, you two were discussing my many and varied deaths?"

"You seem surprised."

"No. Not really. Jack is well known for his random conversations in the face of impending doom. Death and Homer Simpson are one and the same to him."

Teesan cocked his head to one side and studied Daniel for a moment. "This Homer is a friend of yours?"

"Me? Not particularly. Jack knows him fairly well, though."

"Ah. I find your people to be most strange."

"Yeah. Me, too."

"You have the crystal?"

Daniel patted his pocket and smiled. "Right here." Teal'c had tucked the crystal there just before the station blew up, and Daniel regarded it as their consolation prize to losing everything else they'd tried to save. In a way, and he realized this would be no comfort to the Yahut, it represented something bigger than what they would have gained had they been able to save _Crellum Mare_. "I'm sorry about your home."

Teesan shrugged, and Daniel realized it wasn't out of complacency, but more an acceptance that events had been out of his control. "You saved our people," he went on to say. "Which is a far more precious thing. We have people among the stars who will help us to resettle. I am not afraid for our future."

"Only yours?" Daniel looked back out at the stars. They seemed brighter somehow.

"My future? We knew when we chose to stay that we were potentially forfeiting our lives. The choice was ours to make. You and your companions, however, made your choice for the sake of others."

The words, 'It's what we do,' sang out in Daniel's mind. "Yeah, I sometimes worry about our knight in shining armor mentality, but it's worked so well for us in the past."

"Knight in...?"

"It's a phrase, meaning to come in at the last moment and save the day."

"Would you consider this outcome a win?"

The stars really did seem brighter, and Daniel wondered if oxygen deprivation was starting to skew his vision in some way. He tried to bring up the faces of the Yahut they had met during the evacuation, and then of other peoples they had helped over the years. So many good outcomes, near misses, and really close calls that ultimately tipped the scale of their actions in their favor, when weighed against the losses.

"Yes. I do."

Teesan fell silent and turned towards the viewscreen. The view hadn't changed, and yet he appeared to study it as though there was something new to be seen. "The air grows thin," he said after a moment. "You have noticed?"

Daniel had. "Yeah."

"General O'Neill seeks to find a balance between asphyxiation and freezing to death. I am not sure which I prefer."

No mention of running out of supplies because there was nothing to run out of. Daniel had found several power bars tucked in the leg of his BDU pants, but when shared out between the six of them, they amounted to nothing more than a few mouthfuls. And there was no water.

Teesan had fallen silent again.

And the power levels on the diagnostic display dipped further into the red, in time with a small alarm that announced another fall in the air supply. Daniel swore he could feel it with his next breath; from the pain in his chest and constriction in his throat that almost made him forget about the rest of his aches.

His adrenaline was spent. He was tired. And if he'd taken just a moment to look out the viewscreen before he fell asleep, he might have noticed the telltale mark of a ship exiting hyperspace.

The End

Thank you all for your gracious feedback and for sticking with this story through to the end - C


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